


Little Heart

by auld_cheeky, fallovermelikestars



Category: Glee
Genre: (of Kurt's mother), Angst, Auntie Rachel is exactly the godmother you'd expect her to be, Community: klainebigbang, Flashbacks, Fluff, Future Fic, Grief/Mourning, In-Laws, M/M, Surrogacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-29 19:29:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1009169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auld_cheeky/pseuds/auld_cheeky, https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallovermelikestars/pseuds/fallovermelikestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt and Blaine, living and working and loving in the concrete jungle, may seem to have much of their life together: since high school they've known the Who, along with the What, the Where, and the Whys. Their When is "always," with no mountain too high for the two of them, but this one comes close – parenthood. The How of becoming fathers, of being fathers, of surviving fatherhood is the most daunting test to their relationship yet. Their childhoods included ups and so many downs; can they nurture a little life with the odds stacked against them?</p><p> </p><p>"What if... what if I'm not the one?" Kurt asks. He cringes at how desperate he sounds.</p><p>Blaine snorts a tiny, airy laugh before being scorned into seriousness by one look from his spouse. Even so, he has to suppress a grin as he lifts his outside arm and wiggles his ring finger in Kurt's direction. "I know sometimes I say you worry for no reason, and you prove me wrong, but trust me on this one: you worry for no reason."</p><p>With a sleep-deprived pout and a lazy swat at the closest part of Blaine he can reach, Kurt huffs. "I don't mean with you. I'm arrogantly, ridiculously too sure in that regard. I mean with our child, Blaine. Do you not see it?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by the kind, terribly fast, and sharp-eyed [blackmustache](http://blackmustache.livejournal.com/) – we owe you one million. Any mistakes made are ours and ours alone. Likewise, if you come across anything you think ought to be tagged that's on us, too, and please don't hesitate to call our attention to it.
> 
> And now for our artist, the magnificent, more-artistic-talent-in-her-pinkie-finger-than-I-have-in-my-whole-body, lovely, patient, did I mention talented?, sweet as pie [maxwell-kiddo](http://maxwell-kiddo.deviantart.com/). Dear, we cannot thank you enough for honoring our piece with your works. See Master Art Post [HERE](http://cs-kiddo.livejournal.com/5082.html).
> 
> Please note that greater time jumps are indicated by bigger breaks (~ ~ ~ instead of ~).

“Which one is it that we’re meeting?” Blaine has their tray of soups and salads in his hands. Kurt, meanwhile, has one eye on the paper napkins he’s been folding into bite-sized pieces and dropping on the table, the other eye on the door.

“Carmen, from Albuquerque.” Kurt surreptitiously ruffles through the folder he’s brought with them below the table, then points out a bright-smiled headshot of a woman about their age.

“This is her? The personal chef, right? Oh wow, can I be her friend? I mean – is that allowed, if I –”

“Hold on,” Kurt murmurs, softly brushing a hand over his – Blaine feels tremors. They watch her, Carmen, cat-eyed, alert yet calm, slightly small in stature, with excellent posture and the most _serene_ voice, from the snippets they can hear above the noise. She’s ordering her food at the first counter, and Kurt swats at Blaine’s arm, mutters, “I’m not ready, you–”

Blaine’s up in a snap, weaving between chairs and heading for Carmen’s place in line for the register. He delicately reaches a hand out for introductions, wearing the most amiable smile – Kurt beams inwardly, well aware his own eternal bitch face can tend to appear unbidden during first impressions. A slow, watchful smile comes across Carmen’s full lips as Blaine charms her with his ridiculous anecdote about the mime from the subway this morning (probably), and it doesn’t go away when he asks to cover her meal.

They approach, and Kurt needs to wipe his palms before standing, a habit he all but shook before college. “Kurt,” Blaine leads, lingering an extra beat – _that_ means _something_ – “You’ve met Carmen.”

“Only on the phone,” Kurt replies with a tight smile and a one-armed hug. “Your headshot barely does you justice, my dear.”

“Mm, thanks, sweets.” Carmen smiles warmly, settling in behind her tray. “I’m more concerned with the food’s looks on the site, though. One bad edit and it looks like I’m serving fresh turds on a bed of mold, like one of those Chinatown menus. Had to clean up a bunch of low quality Facebook photos because people were using _those_ pixellated messes in press stuff; do you know how much business went down?”

“A lot?”

“Sixty percent.”

“Ouch,” Blaine says.

“So much ouch. Alright, and how are you, Kurt? Since we last talked.”

“I’m... nervous,” he says, fiddling with his soup spoon.

“As you well should be; I’d be worried if you said anything else.”

“Yeah, well...”

“Worry not,” Blaine finishes with a slight grimace.

“I won’t ask what your other options look like at the minute. I guess, Blaine, you’d like a rundown on me?”

Blaine swallows, but a hand at his hip grounds him before his mind spirals too far off. This isn’t the kind of thing you get better at with time.

“I’m 32,” Carmen begins, drawling to ease them into it. “I carried to term once when I was 25, and that kiddo is brilliant. Healthy and bright. He and I hit up the best desserts places in town every half-birthday of his.” She smiles fondly, pausing with a forkful of food in the air. “But...” She sets it back down, shoos the imagined worry she sees in their brows. “That was an open adoption, and you are your own people. My man and I love kids, just don’t know about having our own – he’s afraid of the empty nest, no doubt. Me and your family can be involved nine months to the day or much longer, and I’m happy either way.”

Kurt hasn’t lost the suspect gleam in his eyes since the “desserts” comment, and knowing his husband it’s as much about _them_ as it is about the quick, strong woman in front of them.

“Ok, tangent finished with.” She draws a spinach leaf through the remnants in her dressing cup, silent for a moment. “Well, maybe biggest to smallest. For starters,” she begins, biting her lip and raising an eyebrow as though she’s about to shoot herself in the foot – it’s probably as close as she ever gets to looking shy – “My guy and I are not alone, so to speak. We’re, uh, we’re involved with one other couple... And this is why I haven’t really found the right match for surrogacy before – it’s not that I’m not willing, people just aren’t wanting.”

“So... you’re in an open relationship,” Kurt says.

“About as much as you and Blaine are,” she parries, and there’s a flicker to her eyes that lets them both know they’re nearly butting heads. “We’re poly-fi,” she clarifies.

Kurt’s eyebrow lifts. “Point taken.” He says, seemingly impressed. “So why are you telling us then?” From the corner of his vision he sees Blaine flinch, and realizes he should maybe drop the offensive stance that’s coming out in his tone. “I mean, it changes nothing.”

“Well, yes and no. We’re safe,” Carmen notes. “Through everything it’s always been that, as a priority. Other parents... or parents-to-be, I guess, even what you might call progressive ones, a lot of them really aren’t interested in knowing what it means; monogamy is king, it makes good, happy, healthy families and isn’t called into question very often. It doesn’t change a thing, but it does matter.”

“This is,” Blaine starts then stops, chewing a second. “A not-so-great question, but in your quad, does every partner agree upon your doing this? It won’t, wouldn’t cause any issues, that you’d be carrying someone else’s baby?”

Carmen pauses. “No issues, other than the mood swings and me having two more people around who’ll get to deal with the back aches and whining. Better for you, three people who can talk me into taking more frequent work breaks and fetch my candied pineapple rings.”

“Look,” she says, “I’ve made it to round two, and I really like you guys. Having a surrogate allows you to have the entire pregnancy opened up to you, the good and bad – you know what you’re in for, and from what I hear you don’t want to be at an arm’s length, or just show up again sometime around my due date. So if you’re gonna be around, you know who you’re around, and you’re okay with all of me. Otherwise we part ways.”

“I think we’re more than okay,” Blaine murmurs, a grin teasing at the corner of his mouth.

“Talk about it, yeah? After. Just... so now, the rest is mostly hills to climb.”

“Go for it,” Kurt prompts.

“So I’m Turkish and Mexican, that really means there’s nothing more than a chance of extremely rare blood disorders in my genetics, and then my family has a history of the occasional heart disease.” She smiles ruefully. “Whose doesn’t?”

“I eat well, clearly, but you’d call the shots when it comes to the amount of fish or peanuts or whatever I eat – I get it. I exercise. I travel a lot, within the States, and would squeeze in some final conferences and family visits in my first trimester – that’s, well, pretty non-negotiable.”

Kurt’s eyes twinkle. “I wouldn’t ask something of you I couldn’t do myself.”

Carmen meets his eyes, takes a sip of water and nods. “Thank you,” is all she replies.

“Would you...” Blaine starts, “be interested in hearing more about us?”

They seem to all take a long-awaited breath there, and the woman in front of them looks bashful, in a way, relieved of a burden and allowed to flourish. “I’d love to,” she responds, eyes laughing.

Afterwards, when their lunch hours are nearly up and Carmen’s gathering her purse, face aglow, she grabs hold of both Kurt and Blaine’s hands, meeting their eyes. “It’d be an honor to carry your baby, guys,” she says, open and passionate. She smiles briefly before saying a quick goodbye and navigating her way out the door.

Blaine is squeezing Kurt’s hand numb between them on the booth, and he turns to face his partner more fully. With a hushed, excited tone he says, “Is there, like, a two day rule in place here? My first choice goes by the name Carmen, am I alone here?”

“You’re not alone, Blaine.”

~

On the eve of Carmen's ninth month, the nerves have Kurt calling her every afternoon, sometimes every morning if Blaine isn't around to stop him. "She's only going to get cold feet if you keep giving her wake up calls," he'd say, holding their cell phones just barely out of reach. "Please," Kurt would scoff in reply. "Now she just knows we're thinking about her."

"Just know it's not helping the baby arrive faster. We don't want that; do I have to remind you?"

To keep himself from the wrong edge of a breakdown, Kurt threw more energy than he had into physical activity – or really, exertion. Before bed most nights he challenged his husband to wall sits. "Your ass will look phenomenal, Blaine," he said, and Blaine mimicked it bitterly while their quads burned caustically.

"It _does_ look phenomenal, I can't remember the last time I rode an elevator... Why can't you take up Pilates again? Is there such thing as postpartum depression in males? Kurt, ah, fuck, can't we just meditate or _talk_ to calm you down? I'm in so much pain I might as well be having contractions. Oh God, do we even really know the anesthesiologist? Are you sure green was the way to go on the nursery? Didn’t you run like a half marathon this morning?

"Can't we just once have sex on one of these nights before I'm exhausted due to these murderous combinations of sit-ups, crunches, push-ups, pull-ups...? God, they have pills for this, Kurt, can we maybe just make you some tea? I'm afraid I'll never be able to top again if you keep up this _regime_."

One evening, with two weeks and two days left before they’re scheduled to become a family of three, Kurt near-collapses out of the downward dog he'd been holding for long minutes even after their typical athletics routine. With a not- _too_ -relieved glance over his shoulder Blaine eases down to his knees. A beat later his arms give out and they're both staring at each other prostrate on the living room rug, which had been cleared for this madness weeks ago.

Kurt lifts up on his elbows and crawls closer as if they're both in the middle of a drill, covered in mud, sweat, and tears. He nuzzles down, so close his ragged breath is probably feeding Blaine's own in large part, and waits until their eyes have adjusted focus enough for them to share a wide gaze.

"Thank you," Kurt breathes, his cheeks and forehead and neck flushed red, his chest heaving.

Blaine rolls onto his back, framing his lover's face above his with both hands. "We're going to have a child," he mumbles. "I'm going to have a little Kurt, and there will be more sass under our one roof than I'll be able to bear."

"We'll try and go easy on you."

"No, you won't." Blaine's voice is still low, his sweaty face bunched in a wry side smile. "My hands are going to be the epitome of full from day one."

"We'll both have parents around, babe. Yours for almost a week after Carmen gives birth."

"...Like I said."

Kurt snorts, but it’s airy and light. “Hush, you.”

“Seriously though, we’re done, right? With the boot camp?”

“We’re done.” Kurt nods, offers an almost apologetic smile and Blaine grins, lifting his head as far from the floor as he can manage and tugging Kurt down the remaining distance, his ‘thank fuck for that’ getting lost in the kiss.

~ ~ ~

This is what it must be like, Kurt thinks, to love, wholly and completely.

Unconditionally.

He always thought he had that with Blaine but what he has with Blaine is not the same as this by a long stretch. Loving Blaine is wonderful, joyous. This is not. This, this small finger holding so tightly to his, it makes something tighten in his chest and he has to focus, really focus on breathing, in and then out again. It's overwhelming and fierce and raw. It's a need to provide, to protect, to always always feel just like this, and more than anything it hurts.

Suddenly and from nowhere Kurt longs for his mom.

Back when Kurt was even more of a _kiddo_ – _"a wing nut, Kurt,_ you _know_ ," – his mother's hand had always been there before he knew he needed it. The time he grazed his knee on the climb up their porch, which was much more strenuous when the bricks rose above his forehead and he insisted on toddling around in penny loafers even as the snow had only just started turning into slush. Even more memorably, the time when Kurt, with his clammy hand grasping his mother's for dear life, toddled up to the classroom on his first day of preschool – Burt had been there too, camera and tissues in hand as he followed close behind, but a father's touch hadn't been what their little boy gravitated towards, and even if it'd hurt at the time it wasn't fair to see the choice as anything but alright.

Kurt watches Blaine shuffling back and forth around the dimly lit nursery, shushing and humming and sometimes singing as their baby rocks off to dreamland again. She fusses, that's for sure, but Blaine's is more often than not the magic touch she needs. Regardless of how evenly the couple splits the baby monitor duties, her shrill warbling cries begin to take on a tone of calling for Blaine in Kurt's mind; of course, it feels foolish to think an infant could have a favorite parent this early. All anyone wants is a warm embrace, right? Still, Kurt tries to hide the relief he feels when Blaine says things like, "I'll take it, hon, I know you've got that thing in the morning. Just, mind warming up the milk for me?"

Tonight isn't a weeknight, though, so when Blaine gets back – hair mussed, eyes bleary, joints snap-popping as he passes over the hardwood – his husband is far from fast asleep, but rather is sat bolt-upright against the headboard, mechanically flipping through a travel magazine on his lap. Kurt looks up, eyes alert but a little distant, and throws the mag aside so it misses the bedside table and slaps onto the floor.

"Blaine..."

There doesn't seem to be more coming. Kurt is absently caressing the skin along his collarbone, eyebrows furrowed slightly as his gaze wanders around their bedroom.

"Mm?" Blaine prompts as he climbs under the sheets again.

"What if... what if I'm not the one?" Kurt asks. He cringes at how desperate he sounds.

Blaine snorts a tiny, airy laugh before being scorned into seriousness by one look from his spouse. Even so, he has to suppress a grin as he lifts his outside arm and wiggles his ring finger in Kurt's direction. "I know sometimes I say you worry for no reason, and you prove me wrong, but trust me on this one: you worry for no reason."

With a sleep-deprived pout and a lazy swat at the closest part of Blaine he can reach, Kurt huffs. "I don't mean with _you_. I'm arrogantly, ridiculously too sure in that regard. I mean with our _child_ , Blaine. Do you not see it?"

"I should hope not, she looked like she was out like a light."

"She _adores_ you, Blaine, so so much."

"And I love her. And I love you, and you love her, and she loves you more than she can even express right now... or ever, really."

"That may be true, but she _adores_ you, and that's good, that's more than good, but– God, this sounds selfish no matter how I say it – I'm scared that she loves you that much _more_. Or, I mean, that she loves me that much less."

"Kurt. What evidence are you drawing from here? Is it the fact she still tries to breastfeed on me sometimes? Because honestly I think, if anything, that shows a disgust or disregard for my sweaters."

"No– _Blaine_ , take this seriously. It feels like she may as well think she has a single father and he keeps on a very inept nursemaid out of the goodness of his heart. What if that never changes? What if we never click and she thinks I don't love her? That I'm incapable and stupid for trying?"

Blaine sometimes wonders if he’s already trying too hard.

Fatherhood is something he needs to succeed in; he needs to be more to his child than his own dad was to him. Which is not to say he’s had an awful upbringing or that his parents didn’t and don’t love him because that’s not at all true. Blaine has been lucky, he knows that, but they’re not as close as Blaine would like; he’s closer to Kurt’s dad than to his own and sometimes he looks at the way Kurt and Burt are together and feels a longing in the pit of his stomach.

He doesn’t ever want Cora to feel like he doesn’t understand her; like it’s just a little bit too much trouble to try. He doesn’t ever want her to feel like he isn’t proud of every breath she takes or have her wonder if he wishes she might be different. He wants her to know that he loves her for every little thing that she is and more than anything else he wants to be _there_.

Kurt seems to think it comes easily to Blaine and to a degree it does: loving Cora is as natural to him as breathing but the rest of it, the being a parent part of it all is hard. It’s hard because it’s new and it’s unknown and there is no rule book but it’s also hard because the only example he has to follow, really, is the one set by his own parents and Blaine is desperate to somehow be more than that even if he can’t really articulate what that means.

He feels bad, suddenly, because what if these insecurities of Kurt’s are his fault? What if his efforts to be the best he can be at this are what has made Kurt feel like he’s somehow not being _enough_. Blaine never wanted to make Kurt feel like he was less than the perfect father, he just wanted to make sure _he_ was. It’s almost funny really, except that it’s apparent in the way Kurt squeezes at the skin on his neck as he talks, the pressure of his fingertips leaving angry red marks, that it’s not funny at all, because _Blaine_ thinks it comes easily to _Kurt_.

It’s so easy for him to slide into bed alongside his husband and offer wise words and reassurances because it’s so obvious to him that Kurt is excelling at this; he doesn’t know anybody with as enormous a capacity for love as Kurt. He watches him with their little girl every day and every day he thinks to himself that this is what it must’ve been like to grow up in the Hummel household; this is what it must be like to have been parented by Burt, by Elizabeth, by Carole because fine, Blaine might have the practicalities down to a fine art, might survive lack of sleep better than Kurt but the rest of it, the whole love thing, the whole _dad_ thing, Kurt _owns_ it and Blaine really doesn’t get how Kurt can’t see it.

Here they are now, though – it’s obvious that Kurt _can’t_ see it – and Blaine’s been trying so hard to build a relationship with this baby who isn’t going to be able to articulate anything beyond a babble for months that he’s made Kurt feel like he’s lacking. The only reason he’s been trying so hard is because he thought Kurt didn’t have to and it’s all quite ridiculous really. It’s especially ridiculous because Cora’s face lights up at the mere sound of Kurt’s voice and Blaine genuinely believes without a shadow of a doubt that there isn’t a person on the planet that will love him as much as that little girl does, except maybe Blaine himself.

"Kurt Hummel. My husband and best friend and so much more, you are the furthest thing from incapable of love. You know that almost as well as I do. Hush with the crazy talk, your daughter loves you more than that sopping wet blankie she's slept with for the past five months. And you definitely haven't let her spit on you as much as it has. Every parent has their strengths, and the fact that you care this much? Even now, before she can walk or talk or eat solid foods or use a toilet? That alone puts you leagues ahead of half the parents out there. Stop fretting and keep doing what you're doing; you only think she likes me better because you don't see how she looks at you, how much progress you've made. I know I am very nice to look at, it's true, but give yourself a little credit and try and see where you two get along best. I promise, if you find true father-daughter bonding nirvana at the diaper change station, I will never relieve you of that doody for as long as she doods."

"'Fretting," who says 'fretting'?" Kurt smiles and his nose wrinkles, but his features have calmed considerably.

"Tell me you'll consider the diaper change thing."

"Oh, I'll consider it, my love, just everywhere _but_ around her open stink bombs."

"Fine. Compromise. Just watch and be patient because she totally is head over heels for you, too, that's all I ask."

Kurt will try to compromise, of course he will, and he wants to believe his husband. He really really does. He always wants to believe Blaine and he _needs_ him to be right, but it’s too hard to have faith, almost, when it comes to this.

He’s been struggling with it for so long, this fear that somehow he won’t be enough, won’t be able to give his daughter what she needs and with every day that passes as he falls a little bit more in love with her, the fear intensifies. It’s like a roadblock now that he can’t quite see a way past.

Blaine is so natural and it’s not that Kurt’s jealous of that, he isn’t: he’s so so proud of his husband; Blaine was born for this, to be a father. He soothes and he laughs and he sings, he seems to know instinctively what their daughter needs and what she’s saying whereas as Kurt just looks at her sometimes when she screams, little face so red and screwed up, so angry with the world at only 5 months old and he just feels _lost_.

Kurt doesn’t think he’s ever been anybody’s favorite, except for Blaine’s. Maybe that’s part of the problem: he’s so used to having to fight for what he wants that maybe it makes sense to have to fight for this too, but he can’t: he doesn’t know how to fight for his daughter’s love, and he doesn’t know how to believe he doesn’t have to.

It’s easier to do it now, somehow: to believe that his daughter doesn’t have a favorite that isn’t him at less than 6 months old; it’s easier in the early hours of the morning when she’s asleep in her own room and Blaine is curling into him, loose limbed and almost ready for sleep again, fitting so perfectly into the curve of Kurt’s body. Blaine presses closer, their legs tangling together at the ankle, Blaine’s fingers, always so warm, pressing gently into the skin of his hip and his breath ghosting across Kurt’s chest as he presses a kiss to the skin below his collarbone and mutters a “night, baby” into his skin. Kurt lets himself believe that his life is perfect: perfect husband, perfect daughter.

He remembers vaguely as he shuffles a little so as to be able to press a kiss into Blaine’s hair in return, the nights when they’d still be awake at this time, when Kurt would slowly fuck Blaine into the mattress, his husband’s eyes holding him tight, like a beacon keeping him tethered to home. Those days are gone now, replaced by nights that are sleepless for a whole other reason, replaced by formula and teething rings and more laundry than you’d ever think possible from a person so small; leisurely sex replaced by almost hurried handjobs, a blowjob if they can stay awake long enough: Kurt can’t remember the last time they fucked, he can’t even remember the last time they spent any actual _time_ alone together when one or both of them wasn’t sleeping. But if he’s honest then he really would rather be here than anywhere else, even if he’s not all that sure that being here is something he’s all that good at.

Even if being here does scare the living hell out of him most days.

Burt had been petrified, he told Kurt, on the day that Kurt had been born.

The nurse had placed this wriggling little ball of _human_ too tightly wrapped in an orange blanket into his arms and he’d felt his stomach drop right through the floor because jeez, he’d never been this close to a baby before.

Burt Hummel always had dirt beneath his fingertips, could diagnose an engine from fifty paces and had absolutely no idea what to do with this child, this child that he’d _made_ and that all of a sudden depended on him for everything. His heart swelled 'til he wasn’t entirely sure how it still fit within the confines of his chest and yet he didn’t know how to hold him, or how to speak to him, couldn’t feed him and was so sure he’d always be afraid to bathe him or dress him. Little Kurt, so small, so helpless and so perfect, so like his mother to Burt even then, when he was minutes old.

The fear had been enough to bring tears to his eyes; he’d been crying since the moment Kurt made his appearance in the world with a lusty cry. Lizzie told everybody afterwards how Burt had cried tears of joy and Burt hadn’t quite known how to tell her that actually it was sheer panic. He’d held his son in his arms, stiffly, barely daring to breathe and then he’d looked over at his wife, exhausted yet serene against the pillows and she’d smiled at him, that slow and easy smile that made her entire face light up and a lump rise in Burt’s throat every time and she’d patted the space on the mattress beside her, indicating that he should sit.

Burt hadn’t moved. Hadn’t been _able_ to move: had his wife not noticed he was cradling a newborn? He couldn’t possibly do anything but stand like this, perfectly still, with Kurt asleep in the crook of his arm and hope to God he didn’t drop him.

Lizzie had laughed a little tiredly and said, “You’re going to be terrified for the rest of his life, my darling, but you’re going to do just wonderfully.”

It had been the truest thing she ever said to him – the terrified part at least, Burt told Kurt some 20 odd years later, as they stood in another hospital in another state and Burt cradled another newborn in his arms.

His granddaughter.

“It was the truest thing she ever said to me, and it’s the truest thing I’ll ever say to you, kid. You’re going to be terrified for the rest of your life, Kurt, but you’re going to do just wonderfully.”

Maybe Kurt was supposed to be reassured by that. He wasn’t.

When Kurt was three he threw a temper tantrum in the middle of the mall. He was shopping with his mom for a new winter coat; at the end of October it was already cold out and Kurt had grown lots since last winter. His old coat was too short in the sleeves and barely fastened; he’d lost his baby fat, wasn’t a toddler anymore but a little boy. He’d been promised a cookie at the coffee shop if he was a good boy and it had all been going so well, until it wasn’t.

It was all going so well until his mom said that the navy blue and white jacket that made him look like a sailor wasn’t “appropriate” for the weather and Kurt had to have the boring dark blue one with the big buttons that was ugly and made him look like Paddington Bear. His mom tried to reason with him that he _liked_ Paddington Bear which, well, Kurt did but that didn’t mean he wanted to dress like him. He wanted the sailor jacket because it made him look like Little Lord Fauntleroy like on his Grandma’s video tape and Little Lord Fauntleroy was _beautiful._

His mom won the battle.

His mom won _all_ the battles.

And so Kurt had thrown a tantrum, a full-on laying down on the floor kicking and screaming tantrum.

Lizzie? Lizzie just watched him for a moment and then sighed, sat herself down on a bench a couple of feet away and pulled a magazine from one of the bags of shopping. Kurt kicked and screamed for a while, people stepped over him or walked around him, a couple even stopped for a moment looking at him and then at his mom and then back to him before moving on. Kurt’s mom just kept right on reading that magazine.

She laughed later, when Kurt was asleep on a pile of cushions on the lounge floor and she was drinking a cup of tea and holding up the dreaded duffel coat to tell Burt.

"You should have seen the looks on their faces; I think some of them were considering calling child services."

"I would have been mortified," Burt said with a fond look at his son. "I don’t know how you didn’t just drag him out of there kicking and screaming."

"I’d have looked like a kidnapper,” Lizzie joked. "You should have _heard_ him, and besides he’s stronger than he looks. There was no point trying to calm him down. All you can do when he’s like that is wait for him to burn himself out."

"I don’t know how you have the patience." Burt leaned in and kissed her. "He’s so lucky to have you. _We’re_ so lucky."

Burt’s been dining out on that story for _years_ , Kurt screaming in the mall and Lizzie just reading a magazine 'til he’d finished. Kurt had been embarrassed at first and then as he’d gotten older had grinned and joined in, saying she brought it on herself, because it’s never okay to dress your child in a duffel coat and it just goes to show that even at three he’d been aware of the importance of fashion and some people ought to take a leaf out of his book. Now though, now he just wonders what _he’ll_ do if his child decides to channel the devil in a public place and Blaine isn’t around to hold it all together. He strongly doubts he’ll have his mom’s patience. More likely he’ll lie down next to her and shed a few tears of his own.

It’s never seemed fair to Kurt, that he had his mother for such a short length of time. It seems even less fair now, that she’s not here when he is embarking on the great journey of parenthood without her guidance. He has his dad, and he is so so grateful for that: his dad is more than Kurt could ever have dreamed of and if he can be half the dad that Burt is then Kurt will be happy, the problem is, that he doesn’t see how he can ever be.

It worries him, probably more than it should, how the little girl already so precious will fare, growing up with two dads in a world that is often less than accepting of what he and Blaine call "family." So many of his memories of high school in particular are so awful, he doesn’t want her to ever have to go through that but he’s not sure how to protect her. Is her very existence ill-fated, is the family she’s been born into throwing her right into the lion’s den?

He’s scared too that whilst there are certain lessons in parenting that you learn from your dad there are others that you learn from your mom that he will never be able to grasp, and they’re the important lessons, the ones that make Blaine able to calm their daughter’s cries with just a touch and that leave Kurt feeling like he’s on the outside looking in. It’s not fair that he doesn’t have a mom and even scarier, what if he gets taken away from his little girl like his mom was taken from him? He knows it’s irrational, he _knows_ it is, all of it is absolutely insane but when is fear ever really rational and he can’t seem to talk himself down, finds himself throwing up walls around himself not knowing who he’s trying to protect: himself or his daughter.

~ ~ ~

It had been Blaine's idea, not even an idea really but more of a deep-rooted _need_ that started small and grew and grew until one day “I think we should have a baby” was blurted out over dinner, ankles hooked together beneath the worn wooden table in their favourite restaurant and Kurt had looked at him, eyes wide like a deer caught in the headlights.

Oh fuck, Blaine had thought, he doesn't want to.

“It’s not that I don't want to," Kurt had said, reading Blaine like an open book written especially for him. “– More that I didn't exactly expect you to bring it up over pad thai at the end of the week from hell."

Blaine had smiled apologetically because fair enough, his timing was a little off; he hadn't expected to bring it up then either and there was still something there in Kurt's eyes if you looked hard enough. Maybe Blaine should have pushed it but Kurt was saying things like “ _Do you really think we can?”_ and “ _Oh, Blaine, imagine”_ and then “ _Yes. Ok. Yes”_ ' and Blaine had gotten a little carried away in his dreams coming true.

He doesn't doubt, has never doubted even for a second that this is what Kurt wants; he knows Kurt wouldn't have ever said anything even remotely like _“yes”_ had yes not been what he meant and he knows that Kurt loves Cora and that Cora loves him, what he doesn't know really is why Kurt doubts that. He also doesn't know how deep-rooted the fear is or how to break past it, because he knows Kurt – all of Kurt – he knows his past and he knows his present and could take a damn good guess at his future and he knows how he works, he understands why. He just doesn't always know how to fix it.

Cora is Kurt's, she's theirs, but she's Kurt's because _Blaine_ is Kurt's and it made sense for it to be that way, like there was never another option really, besides which, he felt, kind of, that Kurt maybe needed something a little more tangible than he did. Needed that link; needed a part of their baby to be a part of him and a part, then, of his mom. Blaine would gladly fill the world with little Kurt Hummels given the chance.

Kurt had raised an eyebrow when Blaine had broached the subject, a silent _Are you sure_? Blaine just kissed him, a silent _yes_ in this language of theirs that didn't always need words and Kurt had grinned, one of those rare face splitting smiles that made his whole face scrunch up.

“I'd love her anyway," Kurt had been quick to reassure. “Or him. Yours or mine, boy or girl, I'm going to love our child so much."

“Of course you are." Blaine grinned back. "The next one can be mine."

The next one. They hadn't even had the first one yet but even the thought of it was enough to have them laughing giddily, tugging at clothes and kissing sloppily and off-center in their desperation, talk of their future the biggest aphrodisiac.

Blaines wishes sometimes that Kurt could see himself through Blaine’s eyes. That his every blink was a snapshot and he could put them all in an album and let Kurt see just how beautiful he is.

How special and incredible he is.

How he is _meant_ to be a father.

It had taken Blaine’s breath away, the first time Kurt had held Cora, tiny and perfect in a white onesie that even at the smallest size was a little big on her. Kurt had gasped as she’d been placed into his arms, instinctively drawing her against his chest and Blaine had watched them, the way Kurt had moved slowly but not gingerly to the chair in the side of the room, lowering himself into it and saying softly, "Hello, baby girl. I’m your daddy."

His eyes, when he had finally been able to drag them from Cora’s face and over to Blaine’s had been shining with tears and his voice had broken as he said just the one word, just " _Blaine."_

Blaine has never loved him more than he did in that moment, had already been so sure but had known without a doubt in that moment as he crossed the room, dropping to a crouch in front of his husband and child and leaning in pressing a kiss first to Kurt’s lips and then to Cora’s forehead, his own eyes swimming, that this was exactly where they were meant to be.

"She’s the most perfect thing I have _ever_ seen,” Kurt had breathed, gently tracing the curve of her cheek with one finger, and Blaine had only been able to nod his head in agreement, because she was. They were.

~ ~ ~

Blaine tiptoes into Kurt’s office through the glass door, left ajar by his assistant Demetri, taking measured steps to make as little noise as possible. The mid-summer sky, still bright after rush hour has started, shows through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind Kurt’s desk, glowing with a dull orange and thick with gray clouds – they’ll probably be bathed in a warm rain before they get home. He slides into one of the guest chairs with as much grace as possible, and it makes a slight puffing sound.

Kurt’s shoulders twitch and he turns his head over his shoulder to fix Blaine with an arched eyebrow. “Can I help you?” he asks, his tone teasing. Blaine’s eyes laugh in response.

“I was hoping to retrieve my husband, actually. I know the boss around here works everyone pretty damn hard, but it is Friday, after all. Long past quittin’ time.”

“Maybe I can help you out with that.”

"You look quite busy and important – I can take a look around the office first."

"You won't find anyone else out there, we're the last ones on the floor. I told Demetri to go ahead and leave when you arrived."

"And why's that? You barely even know me."

"Mm. Be that as it may, I never seem to get any work done after you've come 'round." True to his words, Kurt is zipping up his laptop case with his back still to his husband, a wry smile visible on his portrait.

"Where you headed?"

"To my bed, to sleep for a million years and dream up a million better pick-up lines than that." He fixes Blaine with that bitch glare; there's a difference between playing hard to get and it being impossible to be gotten.

Blaine pauses, eyeing the floorboards and swallowing a laugh. "Seems we're headed in the same direction. Can I walk you home?"

On the subway, the crowd is sweating, packed in all ass to ankles, and Kurt huffs out a chuckle as Blaine sidles up behind him, one hand warm at his waist and the other at the pole before them. An older woman gives Kurt a concerned glance but he smiles at her – the attention isn't unwelcome.

"It's too hot in here," Kurt murmurs, his head to the side so he can be heard over the doors shutting. Even his hair has begun to wilt since they descended to the steamy, bustling underground.

Behind him, he feels a laugh puff through the back of his ribs, down each vertebrae. "So now I'm doing something right?"

"I meant _for_ this." He's jostled by someone's duffel bag and Blaine sends an affronted glare in its owner's direction. Kurt continues griping under his breath: "See? Least sexy situation in the world, at least today it is."

Blaine tilts his head to press a lingering kiss below Kurt's ear; he can taste sweat near the hairline, feel it cooling on his own skin as he pulls his head away. Masking the move with an adjustment of his footing, he tightens his grip and brings his groin imperceptibly closer.

"You're stopping now," Kurt growls, but still his begrudging smile can be seen in the rise of his cheeks, can be heard in the lilt of his voice.

"Yeah, well, we're getting off soon anyway." His tone is nonchalant – Kurt thinks he'll bite his lip clean through before he gives his man the satisfaction of laughing aloud at the joke. Hidden from view by the work bag slung at Kurt's hip, Blaine slides his hand between them to goose Kurt pointedly, letting his hand dawdle for the entirety of a stop as people filter in and out of the train around them. He only asserts his hold again when a group of teens threatens to separate them. Not to be outdone, Kurt tips his temple forward to lean on the pole and looks back over his shoulder. The slumped posture says he's too tired to even stand, but his eyes say he knows what effect he's having as every bump in the ride makes Blaine's fingers twitch, his eyes flutter.

"Do you never learn, Blaine?" Kurt says, a smug smile on his features.

Blaine shrugs in response. "Wouldn't you agree I don't really have a good incentive to?"

~

Before he can say “T.G.I.F.” Kurt has Blaine backed up against their front door, eyes blazing with equal parts threat and promise, hips grinding in slow, teasing circles. He’s having fun already, and Blaine’s voice dips low over a moan, complains without words about the torture of the last hour, the last day of fantasizing, the last week of not having Kurt in any sufficiently naked and raw way.

They drop their things in a jumble on the couch and Kurt scrambles past to the bedroom, wrestling his cufflinks undone as he goes. Pants and socks shed, Blaine shuffles in seconds later, huffing, “We have forty minutes until pickup starts.”

“Hop to it, then, lover boy.”

Blaine clambers onto Kurt’s lap despite his protests, straddles one of his pants-clad thighs with his own bare ones and rubs his hands into the overheated skin of Kurt’s sides, which have already been freed from his layers. Dipping his head, he laps at Kurt’s neck, licks roughly at his Adam’s apple, grazes his lips tenderly over the five o’clock shadow along his jawline. When Blaine’s tongue begs for entry at Kurt’s lips they succumb and part around a shaky sigh; he inhales and then they’re wholly about each other, lips ravenous but deft, never taking for too long before becoming desperate to give back. “ _Blaine,”_ Kurt whines, wiggling his hips a little – Blaine can’t help that it turns him on, even if it’s paired with the most displeased expression. “It’s like 150 degrees right now, get your damn top off.”

Not deterred in the least Blaine smirks to himself, eyebrows lifted and eyes softened to a pliant, can’t-help-myself kind of adoration. He complies easily, crawls towards the pillows and shucks his shirt and tee. With Kurt’s eyes on him from where the man stands with one hand on the mattress to keep his footing, Blaine lays on his back and shimmies out of his briefs, arching back into the covers and stretching his limbs tight then loose with feline ease. From their bedside table he retrieves some lube and warms some in his palm before wrapping a tight hand around his cock, working it unhurriedly but steadily. He never neglects his audience, even now.

His shoulders knead their way into a more comfortable position on the bed and there’s already sweat beading at his forehead, at his sternum, in the creases of his elbows and knees. Kurt’s mouth is dry when he stumbles to mount the bed, crawling on all fours until he’s got Blaine just where he’s needed him all damn week.

“You’ve got my full attention now,” Kurt breathes, torso flushed as he leans down to suckle all over the expanse of Blaine’s skin leaving wet, open-mouthed kisses that alternate with playful nips, licks, and bites along his stomach, chest, and neck. During the school year he can’t really leave marks where the kids might see and ask Blaine (or worse, their parents) a boat load of prying questions, but it’s not the school year _yet_.

The laugh he sparks from Blaine’s throat is airy, but affected all the same. “I know I do.”

“For thirty more minutes.”

His husband’s head collapses back against the cushions, eyes bright with laughter. “I accept the challenge.”

“Yeah?” Kurt pants, not letting up on his assault of Blaine’s neck and – at times – mouth. “No ass stuff – no time.”

Blaine scoffs. “I don’t just want you for this gorgeous paragon of posteriority,” he says, palming the specimen in question territorially.

“Nor I for yours.” Kurt bites his lip on a smile, thinks better of it and bites lovingly at Blaine’s own bottom lip.

“Christ, you tell me that _now?_ ” Blaine says. “I could’ve spared my balls so much suffering in high school.”

“And college,” Kurt says, snickering. “And up ‘til present day.”

“Hush, you.”

“Love of your life?”

Blaine purses his lips stubbornly. “Maybe.”

“Can I blow you?”

“Absolutely. But only if–”

“Twenty-five minutes, Blaine,” Kurt warns.

“Fine. Get your dick in my mouth.”

~

"Not that it wasn’t nice," Kurt says as they amble down the sidewalk towards Cora’s daycare, "to have you meet me from work and take me home for a Friday evening quickie, but it does make me wonder if there’s a why?"

"Does there need to be a why?" Blaine bumps their shoulders together and Kurt smiles, reaching out to grab his hand and lace their fingers together easily. It still gets to him, each and every time, how easy it is to do that here, now. How he can walk down the sidewalk in a bustling city, hand in hand with his husband; it makes high school feel like a lifetime ago.

"There doesn’t _need_ to be, no, but often there is."

"I had the time," Blaine says simply, "and when I have time I’d rather spend it with you than not and I’d rather we were naked than not."

Kurt hums his agreement, and waits. There is more to come, he’s sure of it. He knows his husband well enough by now to know that something is playing on his mind and he’s trying to find the best way to express it; beyond the initial carefully phrased question, Kurt knows not to push. Blaine will talk when he’s ready and they’ll figure it out – whatever it is – together. They always do.

"My parents are coming to visit. This weekend. _Tomorrow."_

And there it is.

Kurt takes a breath.

"Okay?"

"They miss Cora, apparently." His _but they don’t miss me_ goes unsaid but not unheard and Kurt squeezes his hand a little harder. "Which is odd because, you know, I can’t actually remember the last time they made any real effort with her."

"They sent that package…" Kurt tries but Blaine cuts him off with a sharp shake of his head.

" _Care packages_ , Kurt, do not make up for all the love and cuddles she deserves. She’s going to grow up knowing your dad and Carole as the grandparents that worship her and mine as the people with the fat wallets."

"Then it’s a good job they’re coming? They’ll get to spend some time with her and become more than that. They are already. They _care,_ Blaine, you know they do."

Blaine snorts.

The problem is, Kurt thinks, that Mr. and Mrs. Anderson can’t really do right for doing wrong when it comes to Blaine, and to Cora. Kurt understands that, to a degree: he’s hardly their biggest fan himself and God, he thinks Blaine deserved – _deserves_ – so much more than what they have ever given him, not in terms of material goods but in terms of the things that really matter. Kurt lost his mom when he was eight but he knows that despite that he stills feels more connected to her than Blaine does to his own and that’s wrong, really. It’s not that his parents don’t love him and they’re hardly monsters: Mrs. Anderson has a heart of gold, actually, but they’re certainly distant and it’s a weird kind of relationship that Blaine has with them, one that is so different from the Friday night dinners, warm hugs and easy laughter that Kurt grew up with. Blaine seems to be stuck in a constant battle, doesn’t seem to know exactly what it is he wants from them other than whatever they’re not giving. He wants them to be there physically, to be parents and grandparents in the truest sense of the word, but whenever they are he wants to keep them at an arm’s length. He brings his free hand up to his mouth now, chewing on his thumbnail, a habit Kurt hates and that only comes out when Blaine is worrying.

"We’ll go for coffee," Kurt says decisively, "once we’ve picked her up."

It’s code for _and then we’ll talk_ , a code Blaine understands because he nods, just once and squeezes Kurt’s hand a little bit tighter as they climb the steps to collect their daughter.

It’s Blaine she’s pleased to see, feels like it always is, her face lighting up as she claps her hands and reaches for him and Kurt tries to swallow down the hurt; reminds himself of Blaine’s promises that she doesn’t have a favorite, it’s just that this is what she associates with Blaine – he is the one to pick her up usually, so it’s unusual for her to see Kurt in this environment and she’s small enough, still, to thrive on routine. Blaine buries his face in her hair for a moment, breathing her in before planting a smacking kiss on her pudgy cheek. Cora giggles and Blaine laughs back before turning and handing her to Kurt. She goes easily, nestling against him as Kurt mimics Blaine’s actions: a deep inhale of that perfect his-baby smell and a kiss to the cheek.

She’s quieter with Kurt, fist holding tightly to his scarf as she takes all in and he wonders if that’s because _he_ is quieter to a degree, whether their baby tailors her reactions to suit the parent she’s with. It sounds ludicrous but yet makes a strange kind of sense and he holds her a little tighter as he listens to her nursery guardian fill them in on the day, lets Blaine ask how she ate and asks his own questions about whether the tooth coming through at the back has caused too many problems. It feels grounding somehow, his daughter in his arms and his husband’s hand in his back pocket, as they stand here and chat, as they prove – although he knows they don’t have to, really – how well they know their child.

Sometimes Kurt doesn’t really feel like a parent. It’s easy to _not_ some days when he’s stuck at work, or at some client dinner, or when Cora is sleeping and he’s taking advantage of the free moment to suck Blaine off in the kitchen; he still feels too young for this level of responsibility and it’s scares him. But here, right now, like this, he feels like actually, he might be getting it right.

Like _they_ might be getting it right, because that’s what they are, these days more than ever: a they; he hopes the Andersons aren’t going to come along and knock the wind from their sails.

They choose pizza in the end over coffee – it’s almost dinnertime anyway and it’s Friday night and sometimes, _sometimes_ , Kurt just wants a slice of pizza.

Talking to Blaine about his parents is guaranteed to be one of those times.

They sit in a booth, with Cora in a high chair at the end of the table gumming happily on a crust. Blaine grins at him round a mouthful of pepperoni as Kurt chases cheese with the tip of his tongue.

"You’re adorable."

"It’s hardly my fault," Kurt retorts. "That cheese is so damn stringy." He pauses. "It’s short notice."

It’s a swift change in topic, but Blaine’s parents are coming tomorrow so there’s little point pretending that’s not what they’re here to discuss. Best to just go for it, quickly like ripping off a band-aid. Blaine sighs.

"I _know_.They are so self-centered. They have to be here next week, anyway, for something. I guess it’s two birds, one stone."

" _Tomorrow,_ though."

"I’m sorry."

"Don’t be." Kurt pokes at Blaine’s foot with his shoe beneath the table, his smile soft and reassuring. "It’s not your fault, and it’s fine really. We didn’t have plans and it might be nice – you said yourself they’ve not seen Cora in an age."

~

"What on earth are you doing?"

It’s a reasonable question, Blaine thinks. His husband is wearing denim shorts, cut off at the knee and covered in spatters of bleach – Blaine can’t decide whether he’s had an unfortunate accident whilst cleaning the bathroom or whether he’s paid over the odds for them to look that way, has found it’s often better not to ask – and one of Blaine’s old workout shirts, slightly faded and stretched at the neckline. He looks edible. Blaine has always loved him like this; Kurt treats his body like a canvas sometimes, but Blaine loves to see him just as him, without the ornaments, without the armor.

And Cora?

"She looks like she stepped out of another century. What even _is_ that?"

Kurt looks at him, affronted, and adjusts the cuff of the bright green monstrosity he’s dressed their baby in.

"It’s a swimsuit."

"No." Blaine shakes his head and reaches out, picking up a tiny piece of pale pink fabric from where it lies on top of Cora’s dresser and holding it aloft by the two little shoulder straps, white butterfly print facing forward. "This is a swimsuit."

" _That_ is skin cancer waiting to happen," Kurt corrects. "It’s also far too sexualized for our seven month old."

"It’s a _swimsuit._ It has _frills_. It’s the colour of _blancmange_. It’s not sexualized, it’s adorable and you bought enough SPF 7 million to see us through an apocalypse anyway."

"Would we need sun cream,” Kurt says thoughtfully, "if there were an apocalypse? Anyway. Whatever, if she wears this then she doesn’t need sunscreen at all except on her little feet." He bends over to press a kiss to the sole of one of Cora’s feet causing her to squeal in delight and Blaine grins. It’s one of his favorite sounds.

"It doesn’t make it any less ugly," he says. Which is true. It’s kind of like a wetsuit he thinks. It’s made from swimsuit material but instead of being cute and girly like the swimsuit that was so cute Blaine had almost cried when he saw it, this _thing_ is just…ugly. The round neckline stops just beneath Cora’s chin, the sleeves come to her wrists and the legs reach her ankles, where it’s a little baggy, like she’s wearing something several sizes too big. It fastens with pop buttons all the way up the back; Blaine bets Kurt had a great time doing all those up – Cora is officially the wiggliest baby in all the land. "And I don’t think it fits."

"It’s 6-12 months," Kurt tells him. "She’ll grow into it. And fine, it’s not the prettiest thing, but it’s practical and sometimes practical tops pretty."

"Who are you?" Blaine asks, aghast. "– And what have you done with my husband?"

"Anyway," Kurt says, ignoring him and lifting Cora off the changing mat to turn and shove her into Blaine’s arms, unceremoniously placing a flowery hat on top of her head and _at least_ that’s _cute_ , Blaine thinks. "I’m glad you’re home. This can be a family activity, now."

"What can? And that hat clashes with her _swimsuit,_ you know."

"You’re particularly awkward today, Blaine. Is it the heat?"

He doesn’t wait for Blaine to answer, nor does he give any indication as to what this family activity is that has caused him to lose all his firmly ingrained ideas of style, just turns and strides purposefully out of the room. Blaine shrugs down at Cora who laughs back at him, a laugh that Blaine interprets as meaning _"You’re right, Daddy’s completely bonkers, but who are we to reason why?"_

Who are they indeed, Blaine thinks as he follows him.

"I’m outside,” Kurt calls a few moments later, when Blaine pads down the hallway of the Andersons' Virginia summer home, Cora in tow. He follows the sound of Kurt’s voice through into the garden where Kurt kneels on a rug, parasol propped to provide shadow from the glaring summer sun and a bowl of...something by his side. He’s spreading out a towel and he grins over his shoulder as he hears them approach. Blaine smiles back.

"At the risk of repeating myself…” Blaine drops to his knees beside Kurt, lying Cora on her back in the shade of the parasol. "–what on earth are you doing?"

"Sensory play.” Kurt sloshes a hand through the bright yellow liquid in the bowl before wiping it on his thigh and leaning back on his hands. "She’s going to love it. Perhaps you need the towel though? Those aren’t your old shorts, and I don’t know how easily yellow food coloring comes out. Best not to find out unless we have to."

Blaine’s eyeing the bowl of liquid warily, taking the towel and spreading it over his lap as Kurt drops spoons and a couple of the toys Blaine’s sure Cora usually only plays with at bath time into the yellow sparkly liquid.

Wait a minute, _sparkly?_

"What exactly is in there?"

"Warm water," Kurt counts on his fingers, "yellow food coloring, lemon flavoring, glitter."

"Right. Of course. Wait. Lemon _flavoring_ , you’re going to _feed it to her_?"

"Of course I’m not going to feed it to her, Blaine. Don’t be ridiculous. However, she will likely feed it to herself – everything goes in her mouth these days, so I figured we should be prepared for that and lemon is a new flavor. It’s all a learning curve you know? Touch, smell, taste, the way the glitter will catch her eye."’

"You figured we should be prepared for her to eat it by adding _glitter_? You’re going to feed her glitter?"

"I’m not going to _feed_ her anything. She is going to play, in the tasty sparkly water and yes, she may end up with it in her mouth. It won’t kill her, Blaine, it might make her poop sparkly though," and he laughs loudly as though he’s just said something truly hilarious. Blaine just stares, as Kurt scoops Cora into his arms and positions her carefully beneath his legs, her back propped against his stomach and the bowl in front of her and hands her the spoon. Cora grasps it tightly in one pudgy hand and without even having to be shown she brings it down with a splash into the water. Kurt grins, leans forward and fills a small plastic teacup, holding it high and letting the water fall from high above and down over Cora’s hands back into the bowl. Cora crows with delight.

"I don’t want to seem overly anal," Blaine says, "but I think I gave her her breakfast with that spoon this morning."

"Mmm," Kurt agrees, "I think you did too. She likes the blue spoon, it’s her favorite."

"What I mean is, that is it really hygienic for her to use the same spoon for this” – and he gestures towards them – "as she uses to eat?"

"You do have some funny ideas."

"Says the guy feeding his kid glitter,” Blaine mumbles.

He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, why as he sits in the sunshine watching his husband and daughter laugh and play he should feel like he is on the outside looking in, but he does and it’s not nice.

The thing is, he can’t put his finger on exactly what his problem is. Cora looks like she’s having the time of her little life. Both her hands are fully submerged in the water, one drawing the spoon – _the breakfast spoon_ – back and forth, making the glitter swirl as Kurt splashes her gently, teases her with a tiny rubber frog that Blaine will play with at bathtime later. Kurt looks more relaxed than Blaine’s seen him in a while, so why does it matter that – as predicted – it doesn’t take long for the spoon to find its way into her mouth, that her face and hands are covered in glitter in mere minutes? Why does he feel like he wants to grab a baby wipe and clean her up and go inside to play nicely with the things that are meant to be played with, with the _toys_? He tries to hide his sigh, shuffles backwards just a little, just so he’s half in the sun and pulls his t-shirt over his head, Kurt’s appreciative smirk not going unnoticed.

Maybe Blaine needs to just get over himself.

He reaches a hand into the bowl. The water is warm and it feels a little greasy. That’d be the Sicilian lemon flavor, Kurt tells him when he comments, probably he should have gotten some cheap stuff… only Kurt, Blaine thinks, could use the expensive ingredients for _sensory play_. When he withdraws his hand it’s covered in little specks of gold and even drying it vigorously on the towel doesn’t dislodge them. Cora is going to be glittery for the rest of her life, the stuff’s like superglue.

She has glitter all the way up to her temple, gumming happily on a lemon flavored sparkly spoon and then Kurt, fast as lightning passes her over, depositing her, glitter and all, into Blaine’s arms with a "She’s such a mess. This is prime 18th birthday fodder” and why is it that Blaine wants to bathe her and Kurt wants to _photograph_ her?

When Blaine was three the family had gone to spend a week with his paternal grandparents, out in the country. It had rained for the three days prior to their trip and the old roads that surrounded his grandparents’ house were a mass of deep muddy puddles and sodden leaves. The weather had taken a turn for the better the week of their vacation though, because (or so Blaine’s Mommy had told him) the sunshine knew what a good boy Blaine had been and wanted him to have lots of fun. Blaine had felt a little smug, that it was his good behavior and not Cooper’s that had secured the family some good weather and had wandered round for the first two days wearing a face splitting grin. On the third day Blaine’s parents wanted some "grown up time” with Grandma and Grandpa and had put Cooper in charge.

"Go and play outside," they’d said, "and stay out of trouble."

Blaine had worn his new wellington boots, the green ones with the frog eyes which were just the _best,_ and Cooper had let him jump in every single puddle they came across. By the time they headed back for dinner several hours later, Blaine was almost unrecognizable; he was covered in mud, right up to his hair, filthy and deliriously happy.

His mom had hit the roof. Not at Blaine, because he was only three and Coop had been in charge, but Cooper had gotten such a roasting that it had made Blaine cry in sympathy. Those shorts Blaine was wearing were new, _first time being worn_ and they were _ruined_ and some of Dad’s friends from school were here, waiting to meet the boys for the first time and how could she introduce them to anybody when her youngest child looked like a street urchin, like he belonged to no one and why, really, could they not just do what they were told, stay out of trouble, "stay _clean,_ Cooper, dammit."

“Puddles,” she’d said to Blaine gently but firmly, crouching down to his level and squeezing his hands, “are absolutely not for jumping in.”

Puddles weren’t for jumping in, and you ate your food nicely with a knife and fork and absolutely not with your fingers ( _"we’re not savages”_ ) and you didn’t paint without wearing a smock, and never ever on the kitchen table and you used a brush and not your fingers. Blaine could play with his bubbles any time he wanted but never _ever_ indoors and sand was only for the beach and you had to be completely brushed off before getting back into the car.

A place for everything, his mom always said, and everything in its place. Blaine has always thought that made perfect sense.

He can remember a story that Kurt told him about being about the same age Blaine was at the time of the puddle incident. Elizabeth Hummel, or so Kurt told him, had gotten an old roll of wallpaper and spread it out in their backyard. She’d stripped Kurt of his clothes – totally naked – and rolled her own trousers to her knees and the two of them had walked a path of paint from one end of the paper to the other, almost the full length of the yard. Kurt had painted handprints, and footprints and even accidentally a print of his butt where he’d slipped and sat in the paint tray and laughing his mom had lifted him out and sat him down on the paper. In the bath that night the paint had made the water look like a rainbow and she’d used her fingers to smear the colors all over his body before washing it off.

Blaine bets that Kurt’s mom would have jumped in the puddles _with_ him and he wonders what this ingrained inability to fully get behind this idea of messy play says, both about him as a parent and as a person, generally. He squeezes Cora a little tighter, grinning as she pats him on the face with her spoon and sucks a little on his shoulder. She must be teething. When he glances down his shoulder sparkles to match Cora’s entirety, some of the glitter having transferred from her face and he tries to tell himself she’s happy and that’s surely the most important thing.

He really wants to wash her face, though.

"Smile," Kurt trills, and it’s like he’s appeared from nowhere, crouching before them camera aloft and Blaine does, turning Cora around as Kurt clicks his fingers to get her to look his way, "you two look adorable."

He leans in to steal a kiss – although can it be called stealing when Blaine will always give them so willingly? – and says with a small smile, "You’ve got glitter on your face, did you know? Right there."

"Alright, Hermione,” Blaine retorts, kissing him again. “You’re looking pretty glittery yourself."

"I have successfully," and Kurt reaches out to take Cora, standing her in the water this time, holding her under her arms as she giggles and wriggles her toes, "– bedazzled my family."

"Ain’t that the truth," Blaine says, lying back on the blanket and closing his eyes. The sun is hot on his face and Kurt and Cora are playing happily beside him and God, what’s a bit of glitter really?

As long as Kurt understands that Cora will remain in the bath later until she’s squeaky clean and Blaine is _not_ cleaning the bathroom after.

~

"I don’t remember her," Kurt says softly. He smiles gently as Cora as she turns to look at them – she’s been doing it periodically the whole morning, as though checking they haven’t left her. Each time her face lights up and it makes Blaine feel warm inside: she knows who they are. She might only be a baby but she still recognizes them as the most important people in her life and is overjoyed by their mere presence each and every time.

They’re sat on a blanket in the park, with Cora on the grass in front of them playing quietly. Every so often Kurt will reach out, long fingers fastening around her tiny wrist and stopping her from putting a handful of grass or a stray daisy into her mouth, offering her a piece of frozen banana instead.

(Cora has chubby little wrists and legs and Blaine loves them.

Kurt had panicked: _"Oh my God, Blaine, do you think we’re overfeeding her? Is her body mass index too high? I mean, she’s healthy, right, and she’s in the right-sized clothes for her age and you know I think she’s perfect – she is beyond perfect – but obesity is a real life problem and I worry if we’re not careful she could be the entirely wrong kind of statistic. How has this happened? She’s never had McDonald’s in her_ life _."_

 _"Of course she hasn’t."_ Blaine had grinned. _"She’s not even a year old. Also, you have never had McDonald’s in your life so. And she’s not fat, she’s peachy. I could just bite her."_

 _"Please don’t."_ )

"You don’t remember who?" Blaine asks, giving his husband a puzzled glance. Kurt has a habit of doing this, of picking up a conversation he’s previously being having in his head and expecting Blaine to be able to follow his train of thought. Usually he does okay, but a moment ago they’d been discussing vacation plans and this is a jump even for Kurt.

Kurt doesn’t answer directly, just reaches forward to adjust the sun hat on Cora’s head before continuing as though Blaine had never spoken.

"I mean, I remember her, of course I do, but I don’t _remember_ her. I remember how she smelled but I can’t draw it to mind anymore, not like I used to be able to. It hits me right in here” – and he taps a fist on his chest – "if I catch the scent anywhere, but I can’t grab hold of it otherwise and I can’t remember her voice without watching Dad’s old movies and I can’t fully imagine how she would have reacted to things or what she might have thought... although maybe that’s because I never really _knew_. I can’t remember how it felt when she kissed me or how she sounded when she laughed or any of the real things. I feel like I’m losing more and more of her every day. And the things I do remember, I don’t know if I remember them because I actually have a _memory_ of them or if I just remember what other people have told me. I don’t know what’s real."

"Whatever feels real is real," Blaine says and it sounds like a cliché.

He forces himself upright from where he’d been resting back on bent arms and shuffles a little closer on the blanket, reaches out to lace his fingers through Kurt’s where his hand rests primly on his knee. Kurt squeezes gently, but doesn’t look at him. Blaine doesn’t need him to, to know that his eyes will be shining; he’s holding himself a little stiffer, back a little straighter and Blaine recognizes the signs, knows Kurt is fighting an internal battle to hold it together right now. He wishes suddenly that they were safe in their apartment where he knows that Kurt would be just a little more likely – not certain to – but a little more likely to let Blaine hold him, to bury his face in Blaine’s neck and let it out. He won’t do that here though, and all Blaine can do is sit and hold his hand and try to find the words when really no words will ever be enough.

Kurt struggles more than anybody realizes with the loss of his mom. He seems to feel it more since Cora came along, which Blaine supposes make perfect sense. Blaine had caught him in the nursery once when she was just a few weeks old, sat in the rocker with Cora in one arm and a worn paperback book in his free hand, his shoulders shaking with the force of his sobs. Blaine had dropped to his knees and reached for the baby, murmuring a soft "hush hush hush," comforting his husband the way he comforted his child. She’d been laid nestled against Kurt with her eyes open as he cried but when Blaine had taken her from him she’d joined in, her lusty wail like the soundtrack to Kurt’s pain as though she’d known somehow that holding her was comforting him and she was angry at Blaine for taking her away. He had passed her back quickly, watching as Kurt held her close and Cora’s tiny fist reached to tighten around his shirt as her cries stopped and her eyes closed.

 _Of all the books to try and read her,_ Blaine had thought, taking the copy of Munsch’s _Love You Forever_ from Kurt’s hand, a lump forming in his own throat at the feel of the years old paper beneath his fingers and the knowledge of the inscription inside the front cover: _As long as I’m living my baby you’ll be. To Kurt love Mommy_ in Lizzie’s perfect script. She hadn’t lived long enough.

That day Blaine had reached out, pulling Kurt and Cora off the chair and onto the floor, settling Kurt between his legs, holding him tight pressed back to chest. He’d finished the story, forcing down his own tears as Kurt cried in his arms and Cora slowly dropped off to sleep. Now he shifts a little closer still ‘til they’re sat thigh to thigh.

"I miss her." Kurt’s voice is small.

"I know."

"I miss her but I can’t _remember_ her. How does that make sense?"

"Memories fade, Kurt, I can’t deny that – but they don’t disappear and you _do_ remember her. You remember her favourite color and her favorite dress; you make cookies just the way she did. The memories of her smell and her voice aren’t as present as they used to be but they’re still there and you still know that when she kissed you in the summer she always tasted like strawberries and that she wore long skirts and danced with you in the garden twirling you around so fast you were dizzy and her skirts fanned out so you thought she was a princess. She might not be here like you wish that she was but you do remember her and she’s still here, she’s so very much _here_ in the memories you have, that you’re passing on to us. To Cora."

~

“You promised we’d spend Christmas surrounded by family, Kurt.” Blaine corners him by the coat hooks as the Hudson-Hummel clan moves past to attempt small talk in hiccups of starts and stops with the Andersons.

“And did I deliver or what?” his husband replies, watching edgily as Finn tosses his niece up and down within inches of their stucco ceiling.

“I’m _surrounded_ , but it’s by the Axis, honey. What the fuck...?”

“Shut up,” Kurt _growls_. “There haven’t been any issues yet, if you cause the first one you’ll be sleeping on the fire escape all winter.”

Blaine whines, lets his head fall back to hit the wall behind him. “Please send them back, please. I will do anything, everything you name I will do.”

“Blaine, you survived eighteen years with them,” and he instantly mirrors his husband’s wince, because "survive” is a big strong word – it’s a true statement, but it’s not so easy as that – certainly not true thanks to a combined effort.

“Blaine, honey, come and see to your guests,” Mrs. Anderson’s voice calls, stirring the couple in the entryway to look busy immediately.

From her son’s throat there slips a high-pitched plea, but he’s already being pulled away by the matriarch’s summoning.

“Be glad you’re not Jewish,” Kurt murmurs with a warmth in his eyes. The group in the living room is quieting, their store of formalities apparently exhausted. He turns his attention their way.

“What are we drinking, then, all?” Kurt’s eyes engage the family, alight with feline intensity and calm hospitality in one. “And don’t tell me ‘nothing,’ this is Manhattan and sober celebrations of the holidays are frankly unheard of.”

Blaine gravitates to where Cooper is playing hand games with Cora on the couch. She’s lying on her back and stares up at her uncle with an open smile, following his glue gemstone gaze and completely losing interest in whatever their hands are meant to be doing. He takes a seat on the free arm of the sofa, facing Cooper.

“Hey, little bro,” his brother says, smiling but not looking away from the captivated audience he’s found on the leather.

“Hey,” Blaine says, watches as Kurt mixes drinks at the kitchen counter, making hushed conversation with Rachel at his side, heads bowed.

“Bet this is a nice surprise.” Cooper almost gets the whole thing out with a straight face but he breaks at the end, snuffling a little laugh. He does finally glance up to gauge Blaine’s reaction, then goes on: “I swear I tried to stop them. And stop Kurt, too. But your guy is like a... force of nature, honestly, even with Dad digging his heels in.”

“Heaven forbid he see the Atlantic once a decade,” Blaine mumbles, fingering the flannel booties of his daughter’s full-body pajamas fondly.

Cooper flicks his forearm but tuts before Cora’s confused frown becomes anything more severe.

“They legitimately don’t want to trouble you, man. –Thanks, Kurt.” He turns to set his glass of red on the coffee table, leans like a cat into his brother-in-law’s familiar squeeze at his shoulder. Likewise, Blaine receives a lingering smooch on his cheek with a mellow gratitude – setting his drink next to Coop’s, some of the pinch in his neck and shoulders is gone thereafter.

“I don’t know how he does it.” Cooper smiles wryly, shaking his head. He tickles at the dimple of Cora’s cheek, his finger mammoth alongside her minute features. In between blowing raspberries, he softly hums “Killer Queen.”

“You don’t want to know either.”

“Lady Friend’s gonna be here to celebrate tomorrow – always helps to have fresh meat at the table.”

His little brother smirks. “God. She must actually genuinely like you.”

“That or she knows Kurt’s name... Well. She _does_ know it but I’m hoping it’s a 50/50 split between Kurt and me.”

Blaine takes a long sip of wine, tries to savor a split second more of the view, of their living room packed snugly with these people whom they always love, sometimes feed, never turn away no matter how strong the temptation. He sucks in a fortifying breath then stands up to meet his responsibilities in the kitchen.

But first: “I believe in you, brother,” he says. “My money’s on 60/40 – you, Kurt.”

Cooper laughs. “I don’t like that I only get points because your husband included us on the guest list.”

“I’m glad you’re here, Cooper.” He tries to leave any emphasis off the ‘you’ but only marginally succeeds.

With a dazzling smile, he replies, “Who wouldn’t be?”

Blaine looks up, his gaze and Cooper’s drift to where Finn stands waiting to have a word, leaning against the doorframe with a dish towel over his shoulder. He raises an eyebrow.

“I believe one of the pies requires your attention, dude," Finn says with a muted smile. "Timer’s about to go off.”

“Oh, that’ll be the cherry.” Blaine pops up, patting Cooper’s knee with an unspoken entreaty to make sure Cora doesn’t parkour her way off the couch and into needing a holiday trip to urgent care while he’s gone.

“And can you point me in the direction of a potato masher, too?”

“New one’s clean in the washer, Blaine,” Kurt pipes up, amends, “Finn.”

Blaine suppresses a grin; this is the first family holiday when Kurt’s been forbidden from the kitchen the day of, in an attempt to lessen his control issues in that department. Of course, that hadn’t stopped him from filling the fridge the night before with stuffing, carrot and leek soup, rolls, cranberry orange sauce, and vegan sweet potato pockets (the last of which Blaine really hadn’t protested all that much – he botches nearly every vegan recipe he touches). The rest of them have tasks that add up to about 30% cooking, 60% heating, and 10% plating.

“You finally gonna show me the secret ingredient to your potatoes, man?” he asks Finn, edging over to where the man’s gathering ingredients near the steaming pot of boiled russet potatoes.

Finn shakes his head, eyes bright as he knocks back his beer bottle. “Not a chance, Anderson. Eyes on your own paper, alright? No way, no how are you getting your hands on my tricks.”

Blaine extracts a tin full of bubbling lattice pie from the oven to Finn’s right, hisses, “Mother _fuck_ er" when his hands slips and he burns himself. “Come on, man,” he begs, going to hold his hand under a cold tap. “Look at what else I’m dealing with right now.” He makes a discreet gesture towards the living room, from which they can hear increasingly loud chatter.

Finn huffs out a laugh, hanging his head with a smile over the counter.

“I don’t pity you, bro,” he admits, nodding. “But your apartment _is_ filled with a ton of your closest family and that stuffing smells fucking fantastic, so.”

“So?”

“Could be worse.”

“Yeah, alright.”

“Yeah. Now back away, you.” Finn jostles his shoulder good-naturedly, offering Blaine a final calm smile.

Later, after dinner Blaine wonders at how Finn’s talent of clairvoyance tends to stumble in at the worst times – things can indeed get worse, and they have. The food might be fantastic and generally the company is too, but in such close quarters the good turnout feels more like a curse than a blessing and even the gentle press of Kurt’s toes to his ankle from across the table, familiar and grounding, doesn’t stop Blaine’s patience from wearing thin.

“Why don’t you ever let us see this little love during the year, Blaine?” his mom says, complains, whines. “Now’s the time, before she goes to grade school. She should get to visit Westerville, see all your favorite places from growing up.”

Blaine doesn’t mention Cora has already met his childhood – some of it, _some_ good parts – because those visits were to Lima, and the only other Anderson who heard about them was Cooper if he was in the Midwest at the time.

Burt eyes Blaine uncomfortably before clearing his throat. “We’d love to have you if you wanna make it a road trip, guys.” Carole nods placidly, brings the champagne flute away from flushed lips.

“Send her for the summer, honey.”

“Lord knows we’ve got more room than we know what to do with,” Blaine’s father adds, smirking into his plate of cheesecake.

“I’m sure she gets tired of the city noise, right? Oop, don’t do that, sweetheart–” Mrs. Anderson’s hand slithers over to where Cora sits in Burt’s lap, and the baby girl has kicked her legs up onto the table. With a light prod from a painstakingly manicured fingernail, Cora’s legs fold to reside beneath the tablecloth again, and the tableware is saved from disaster. Blaine’s already bristling.

“Mom,” he edges out, scooting forward in his seat.

“Yes?” The woman allows the grittiness to roll off her back.

“Our roof, isn’t it? Our rules, Mom?” Blaine isn’t saying it as an impassioned stance, rather like he is looking for the rest of the table to rise up in his support.

“I apologize,” she begins, with a laugh tinkling in her throat. “I was unaware table manners had been outlawed in this household.”

“She’s not even three, she doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

“Doesn’t she? Give her some credit, darling. You were imitating your big brother before you could walk. Isn’t that right, Paul? And I’m sure Kurt would agree that you can never start priming yourself to be in the company of greatness too young.”

“Well, I...” Kurt barely gets going before his mother-in-law interrupts again.

“– It’s bad enough that she seems incapable of sitting in her own seat for the duration of the meal, Blaine – surely even you must agree that running riot at mealtimes has to be classified as bad behavior – never mind putting her feet all over the table. If you let her get into bad habits now then she’ll be a nightmare once she’s older.”

It’s all said with a smile, the quirk of an eyebrow, that slight lilt to her voice that’s meant to come across as being friendly and non-judgmental but which Blaine knows is the opposite. It makes his hackles rise, and that comment, the pointed _even you_... she might as well just come right out and say what Blaine knows she’s thinking: that his being gay is something he does just to rile her (he has told her countless times that it’s not a ‘life choice,’ it’s just something that is, and is rewarded every time with the arch of one perfectly plucked eyebrow). That his refusal to buy into what she considers to be the ‘normal’ 2.4 children household paired with his parenting skills that are decidedly under par will likely lead to his daughter growing up a delinquent and it will all be his fault.

 _If you’d only made different_ choices, _Blaine, Cora would keep her feet off the dinner table and consequently have a much brighter future. If only you had tried a little harder._

He takes a deep breath, counts to ten, but he can’t just sit and not say anything.

"She can sit through a meal just fine when that meal isn’t hours long. She’s just a _baby_ and she’s not exactly misbehaving, is she, not exactly _running riot_ – she’s just getting some cuddle time in with her Grandpa. I really don’t mean to be rude, but like I said this is our house, these are our rules, and to be perfectly honest, if I had to choose between giving Cora the childhood I’m giving her or the one I had, it's not hard to decide which one I’d prefer."

"Whoa!" Cooper elbows him hard and not at all subtly in the ribs and Blaine doesn’t even try to swallow down the yelp. "While this is an absolutely fascinating study of family dynamics that I’m making lots of mental notes about for the next acting class I teach, I really think we could all do with what we call in the business a Time Out. Finn," he turns and tips his head in the other man's direction, "I'm sure you are aware of the concept, maybe you can explain it to Blaine if need be... Go and find another bottle of red, will you, Squirt? My cup runneth dry.”

Blaine risks a glance at Kurt, who’s looking at him with that expression that’s a mixture of sympathy and frustration. Blaine doesn’t blame him and he does feel a little bad for snapping at his mom. Not bad for her so much – except he kind of does, always feels a little bad when his mouth gets ahead of his brain – but definitely not as bad as he feels for potentially making the rest of the party feel uncomfortable. Kurt’s mouth curves up in a smile, a smile that Blaine knows means _perhaps this wasn’t the time or place but I’m always on your side regardless,_ and with a forced air of joviality Blaine stands with the empty bottles in hand, heads for the kitchen.

"Don’t look so forlorn, Mom," he hears Cooper say once he’s out of the room, "you know he doesn’t mean it. It’s like a sport for you two sometimes, always has been."

"I just don’t understand–" And the air of hurt in her tone makes Blaine roll his eyes "– what it is about him that makes him unable to accept a little help." Then Burt says something that he can’t catch, but it makes Finn and Blaine’s father laugh out loud, and he hears Rachel compliment his mother’s necklace and the moment has passed.

Blaine sighs and uncorks a new bottle, half fills a glass and downs it in one before fixing a smile on his face and heading back to the table.

~

“You’re too hard on her,” Cooper says later, leaning against the wall outside Cora’s bedroom as Blaine pulls the door softly closed, stopping for a heartbeat, breath held to make sure she doesn’t stir. Cora has been sleeping through the night for well over a year now but it’s a habit he can’t seem to break, ingrained from long months when she was newborn, where the click of the closing door could easily be enough to rouse her into another 3 am scream.

“On who?” Blaine asks, jerking his head in the direction of his own bedroom and away from his daughter’s; let sleeping babes lie. He’s confused: Kurt and him aren’t hard on Cora at all, really, and if this is one more member of his family thinking they know better than him how to raise his own damn child then so help him...

“Mom,” Cooper says simply with a shrug of his shoulders.

Blaine snorts indelicately.

“I mean it,” Coop watches for a moment as Blaine pads down the hallway in socked feet before pushing himself off the wall and following. “You should give her a break.”

Sometimes Blaine cannot believe his family, cannot believe his brother. He doesn’t get it, he really doesn’t. Kurt, _they_ didn’t have to invite everyone into their home for the holidays, but they did it anyway under some obviously very misguided opinion that a family holiday might actually be _nice_ and while the Hummel-Hudsons have been as warm and as wonderful as ever, the Andersons choose to repay Blaine (and Kurt’s) hospitality by calling into question their parenting skills and ganging up on them. Blaine should have known better. Now Cooper is here, in the doorway to Blaine’s own bedroom and fixing him with a reproachful stare.

“ _She_ needs to give _me_ a break,” he snaps.

“She’s just trying to help, Blainey.”

“Don’t _call me that,_ Jesus. And I – we – don’t need her help. We’re doing a perfectly good job with Cora without her, thank you very much; she can’t just swan in here once a year and start ruling the damn roost. Cora is our child, not hers. This is our house not hers, and I am _not_ a kid anymore.”

“You might not be a kid but you still have a chip on your shoulder,” Cooper points out.

“Fuck off, Cooper.”

“I’m just saying. And –” Cooper raises a finger; Blaine wants to bend it back so hard that it breaks, longs suddenly for his punching bag. “– it’s not exactly all her fault she doesn’t see much of Cora. We both know how much time you’ve spent in Ohio since she was born and we both know how much of that time _hasn’t_ been spent with Mom and Dad. Mom’d be heartbroken if she knew. Cora has two sets of grandparents, B, not just one.”

“Yes,” Blaine spits, “she does – and the other set don’t sit at home and wait for her to come to them; they make the effort. They offer help – and not criticism at every damn turn – and they actively make sure they’re part of Cora’s life instead of waiting to be invited over, then ripping her and us to shreds.”

“If you take off your blinkers for a _minute_ you’ll see she really does care and she really is trying. I think you’re overreacting, buddy.”

“And I think _all_ of you need to mind your own business.”

And even later, after Blaine has shut the door to the bedroom fully. Kurt hums in question – not protest – and straightens up where he’s seated against several pillows, mutes the film he’s started while Blaine said goodnight to his brother in the hall. Blaine shrugs a shoulder, looks a head shorter and decades younger for it, and reasons, “I found the baby monitor and left it on” – he pulls the receiving device from his back pocket – “we’ll know if she needs anything.”

One of Kurt’s eyebrows pops up but still, he says nothing.

“So,” Blaine huffs. “You’re probably wondering why the secrecy.”

“It can’t have anything to do with your brother on our couch, could it?”

Blaine sighs in response. “Coop had the nerve to say I need to let up on my mom, of all things. Has he not seen the way she’s been on our case all night? ‘ _Blaine, that was a bit too much salt for us old folks, don’t you think?’ ‘Kurt, would you mind putting something less plebeian on the television?’_ And _then_ she goes after Cora on this fucking vendetta – how small is that, picking on your own granddaughter to make sure everyone around is belittled enough for your liking?”

“Some of what she said was a little uncalled for, I suppose.”

Blaine chokes. “A little?”

Kurt winces a little, an expression that looks wholly unnatural on his features. “I mean, you take the good with the bad, right? Remember when Dad and Finn left Cora at the food court this summer?” He reaches out a hand to interlink the fingers of both of Blaine’s with his, pulling him closer despite initial resistance. “I can… count on our fingers how many times I’ve ever seen your parents, honey. And that’s– that means they don’t get a lot of chances either way, to screw up or to surprise you.”

“Yeah well Cooper at least knows well enough he shouldn’t be excusing them for shit like this.”

“Maybe he’s just… giving you some friendly advice?” He tugs harder so Blaine’s head falls to rest on his chest; his arms slide under Kurt’s torso almost unconsciously, his deep sigh resonates between the two of them.

“And I should be taking advice from my brother, who has no spouse and no children, who doesn’t know what it feels like to have your parents ignore the family and house you’ve built, steamroll over everything you are and like about yourself and try and replace it with everything they want it to be?”

“I think your brother knows full well what it’s like to not be what your parents want him to be. I think we’ve probably dodged a lot of bullets thanks to Cooper, babe. And I think…” he trails off, knows the feeling of Blaine’s heart rate picking back up, his temper flaring.

It’s quiet for long enough that they hear the bathroom door close, then the toilet flush and sink start running before Blaine succumbs to ask: “You think what?”

“Well, look, what if Carole had done the exact same thing tonight? Or Rachel, or Finn, whoever? Would it have messed with your head this much?”

“They wouldn’t do that, Kurt.”

“Oh come on, humor me. I saw Rachel eyeing that misplaced bootie with just as much of a cringe on her face, she was just seated way too far away.”

Blaine frowns. “You’re messing with me.”

“I swear I’m not.”

“I mean, it would still get on my nerves, it’s just, there’s no need to be as intrusive as Mom’s been tonight. That wasn’t the only time.”

“ _Blaine.”_ Kurt’s voice is patient but leaves no room for argument. “ _That time_ , all the woman did was get Cora’s foot off the table. She also begged you to bring her granddaughter out to visit her, and later she even helped Cora sing that revolting zoo animals song about five million times.”

“She did n–”

“You were drying dishes, you lucky bastard.”

“Ah.”

“I guess I’m not saying she’s without flaws – she is, and if she gets on my nerves occasionally it’s nothing compared to how rattled I get when I can see she’s winding you up. Still. You only get one family, Blaine, and you can’t pick them, only have so much time with them, right?”

Blaine sobers a bit at that. “Yeah.”

“So yes, alright, your mom can be a good old-fashioned bitch sometimes, and your dad, well, he’s doesn't help much, silent observer that he is. Maybe that’s as good as we’re gonna get with them. Ever. She’s not hurting anybody intentionally, and I don’t know, it’s up to you if we make it more of a priority to head over to Westerville once in a while. But while she’s around us – after I somehow miraculously cajoled your parents away from not only their county but their _state_ for Thanksgiving – we let her in at a comfortable distance and don’t let anything she does rock the boat, especially not when she wants to rile you or me.”

“So what, her reward for good behavior is Cora? How is that fair to our daughter?”

“It’s fair because Cora gets all four living grandparents to spoil her on a regular basis. If your parents – or _mine_ – screw up and hurt _any_ of us, we make adjustments. We have boundaries, we talk about things, we don’t let holidays and birthdays and years pass in silence... This family won’t have its ‘old folks’ forever.”

Blaine nuzzles Kurt’s chest, closes his eyes to will away the last of a headache that, really, Kurt’s talked his way out of already. “All of what you’re saying is so much easier said than done, babe.”

“I know. We’ve only got a couple days left, and we’ve got more support on our side than you think, Blaine. Cooper cares about all of us _so much_ , sees more than anyone gives him credit for. And I’m here, and I’m watching and listening, and I never want you feeling like you’re dealing with your parents’ rough edges on your own.”

“I didn’t, I just felt… more than I knew what to do with, really. I don’t– I do feel you, having my back.”

“I hope you know you will be rewarded for surviving this holiday weekend, too.”

“Oh, likewise, Kurt. Oh man, I am so drained I can’t express how excited that prospect makes me, but let me tell you–” He pauses, voice breaking over a yawn. “When this is all over I am gonna blow your patient mind, mister.”

Kurt buries a grin in his hand, catching a yawn there too. “You’ve got yourself a date.”

~

“Yell-o,” Blaine drawls out. He has a half-eaten container of pear slices in his other hand, a plastic fork hangs from the side of his mouth, the baby bag sits in his lap, and Cora’s empty stroller rests next to where he’s seated.

“I hear Tina’s gotten to babysit twice.” _So much for ‘my lips are sealed, guys.’_

“...I’m doing grand, and you, Rach?”

“Hello, Blaine. Be a mensch and put your worse half on, will you? He’s not returning my calls.”

“I think doing so constitutes breaking our vows, actually.”

A long-suffering sigh meets his ear. “Please, Blaine Warbler? I’m dying here.”

Blaine winces, the crumbling of his resolve tangible like sand between his fingers. “God, ugh, okay. I already regret this. I’m not liable if he hangs up, though.”

He saunters to where his husband kneels on the floor of Shoofly, his first choice for shoes in all Lower Manhattan. At present Kurt has maybe 2.5 of Cora’s toes in a floral-patterned sandal.

“This is definitely a two-person job, I’m realizing,” Kurt says, not even glancing up.

“Lemme at it,” Blaine replied. “Rach is on the line.”

 _Shit_ , Kurt mouths at the ground, shaking his head in finality as he sets the saltwater sandal aside with a final longing look.

“Kurt Hummel speaking,” he says, low and devoid of emotion. Blaine settles in to capture Cora’s attention where she sits in a too-big chair, then to trick her into believing shoe shopping can be fun.

On the other end of the call, Rachel takes a gleeful little gulp of breath. “Kurt!” she goes. “May I please just once have Cora for an afternoon?”

“Not right now, love.” When did his voice start sounding that much older than he is? “Maybe in a few weeks, if our schedules line up?” _Weeks, months, years…_ He sees Blaine pursing his lips against a laugh at what’s on both of their minds.

“I know Tina’s gotten her at least two times this year, all to herself.”

“Irrelevant.”

Rachel sighs. “More than relevant, mister. Cohen-Chang-Black doesn’t even live in this state.”

“It’s only March, I’d like to mention. And you’re right, she’s doesn’t exactly live close-by, but–”

“But Cora requires adult supervision,” Blaine chimes in from his seat on the floor, and Kurt passes on the sentiment.

“If you weren’t comfortable with leaving Cora in my perfectly capable hands,” Rachel sniffs, “you two should’ve chosen a different godmother.”

At once, Kurt feels his face fall. “Oh, Rachel…”

Unlike she would have done in years past, she doesn’t jump at the victory right away. “All I’m asking for is an afternoon, babe,” she appeals levelly. “I know I can get frazzled and lose the plot, I know you worry when she’s in someone else’s care. I’m a professional woman – don’t have much free time as it is. Don’t want your baby girl to hit her third, then fourth, then – before you know it – her tenth birthday without knowing her Auntie Rachel…”

“Yeah; well, I mean, you’re a little hard to miss, to be–”

“And if there’s anyone who knows the nightmare of only having two guys to turn to when you finally have to go tampon shopping, oh-ho-ho, that would be yours truly. Bet you hadn’t–”

“Stop with the menstruation talk, please, God. You can have our daughter for as long as you want.”

Rachel makes a shrill, excited peep. “Thank you, thank you, thank you; I swear to take the best care of her and spoil her rotten and you’ve made me the happiest person in the world oh my– Do you think she’s too young for tea at American Girl? Or maybe we can sneak into the Plaza – they’re so fussy now that I’m a familiar face, after all – and we can be Eloise for the day… Ooh, it’ll be grand and exciting." As an afterthought, she adds, "And safe, mind you.”

She takes a breath, then continues: “Do you think we can cover all of FAO Schwartz in one day, or should I pencil in a whole weekend, Kurt? Ugh, they have this two-story Lego castle and – oh, she’s going to simply _scream_ , I cannot wait. When’s she free, my little one? Or, wait– actually, when are you two both unscheduled?” And her voice has gotten deeper like when she wants to get a rise out of him. “I imagine some peace and privacy would do you and Blaine some good, wouldn’t it?”

Kurt snorts, not even remotely bothered. Living together for years had made everything that was once private public, and quick, when Rachel and Santana had anything to say about it.

“We’re doing marvelously with the help of this thing called a babysitting service, nosy.” Blaine’s gaze on him is smoldering, has instantly forgotten the sandal dilemma entirely.

He can almost see her roll of the eyes. “Yeah, but you can only trust a stranger so far, right? Can’t be without worry for hours like you might like.”

Kurt’s taken the seat next to Cora, running a hand over the curve of hair from Blaine’s temple to the nape of his neck. “Mm, we’ve done hours,” he says, nonchalant, then lowers his voice. “I do hope you’ve discovered the magic that is the dry orgasm, my dear. It’s..” – he has to catch his breath – “life-changing, really.”

“Dunno… Think I prefer Wet Ones, frankly.” Blaine’s close enough to the receiver he can hear her reply, and covers his mouth quick to stifle a too-loud laugh.

“Christ, Berry. Please keep that filthy mouth of yours away from our innocent, heart-of-gold progeny at all times.”

“Are you kidding? Prepare yourself for so many lipstick smudges on those baby fat cheeks it’ll take _days_ to fully scrub off.”

“You’re incorrigible. And you’re aware she won’t remember a lick of this when she grows up, right?”

Rachel’s voice radiates with joy and, oddly enough, serenity. “We both know that’s not the point, Kurt. Can’t back out now.”

He sighs, exasperated but less nervous than he probably should be. “Next Sunday, then?”

“This Sunday?”

“There is no way you could’ve known…”

“Where there’s a will and a Rachel Berry, there is always a way.”

“...Oof. Okay, um, noon-ish?”

“I will be there. Oh, and Kurt?”

“Yes?” he drawls.

“You’re good dads, you know, but even the best deserve breaks. Please consider making this a regular thing? I’d be eternally grateful.”

“Well on our way to considering, Rach.”

She breathes a delighted exhale. “Fantastic.”

Kurt waits a moment. “Is there anything else?”

“I love you, Kurt and Blaine.”

Blaine smiles like he can’t help but let it out. Kurt huffs, biting the side of his tongue. “We love you, too,” he says.

“And I adore Miss Cora.”

“We do, too.”

Rachel laughs airily. “Bye, loves.”

After hearing the call end, Kurt swallows a begrudging smile and tucks his phone away.

“Well, Cora, gird your loins,” he says, turning his attention on her and grasping both her teensy hands in his own. “ _Grrr hur-loyy,”_ she mimics, eyes sparkling but face deeply serious.

“You have a date with Auntie Rachel next weekend.”

“Aun-tee Tee!” she squeaks, delighted as always by the name Tina had asked Cora to call her the first time they’d spent the day together.

“Almost, baby girl.” Blaine grins, rubbing her foot inside the second sandal, which he’s only just fastened. “Or you can just call her Auntie Babz.”

“Bab-pbbthz!” she repeats, with an extended raspberry tacked on at the tail end.

“Just like that, honey,” Kurt says through a laugh, eyes twinkling. Blaine swats half-heartedly at his nearest knee, but the damage is already done.

“Bab-pbthz! Cora and Auntie Babth! Buh-thbpbpthpt-pfftthpthzsh. Aun-teeee,” she finishes, grinning proudly.

~ ~ ~

The view from their third floor walk-up has been the same forever, the same to them for almost a decade now – still, every time they came back from a time away it felt different. The apartment would always feel as though it had changed without them, like they were round pegs in rectangular doorways, like the view of the street was shifting just enough that it felt like a 'spot the difference' puzzle you could never get correct. Obviously, the apartment wasn't the one changing. There was really only one other option, but at times it was a bit much to roll out over the tongue: that "Babe, do I look taller to you?" feeling (which, try as he might, Kurt always failed to silently giggle at) was still more welcome than, "Oh, we've aged again, haven't we?" And by aging nobody meant crow's feet, no one meant hip replacements or liver spots. It was more the culture shock, the buzzing under their skin as they looked about and became aware their point of view had changed.

Travel is healthy, Kurt always says, it's a human need. It's as close as mere mortals can get to rebirth. But sometimes it aches – a little like growing pains, a little like heartbreak – knowing you aren't the same as before your sojourn and there'll be accounts to settle sooner or later.

Accounts like this one.

They’d arrived home from a spring visit to Ohio – timed during Blaine and Finn’s spring breaks, which had miraculously coincided for the first time in five years – and nearly collapsed over the threshold in a people-and-luggage dogpile. The sun had set on them during the taxi ride from LaGuardia, the time is barely seven thirty, and yet Blaine has close to no energy left. Kurt, on the other hand, should be just as drained (he’d even woken early to have tea with Carole before she made her way to bed after her shift) and instead he’s gotten a second wind of sorts. He steps over the bags and strides over to the cabinets of the kitchen without pause, idly reaching for the porridge.

“Think she’s pretty hungry?” he asks, voice willowy, his ministrations automated. "Are you hungry, sweetie?"

Blaine gives a half-hearted agreement and settles Cora into her high chair, mouth slack as the change in his husband’s demeanor steals the rug out from under him.

With practiced finesse Kurt secures her bib, pours her a cup of juice, and arranges her meal on the tray. His lips quirk as he smoothes an inky black strand of her hair from where it’s tangled into her lashes. With just as much grace he floats with dead eyes off towards the master bedroom, leaving Blaine to keep her company with a caress down his forearm.

One toll of the mantle clock later and Kurt is in a different state, though as distanced as Blaine is from the mourning process he can’t often see it as an improvement. His husband, tall and lean and lovely, begins to take precise, dancer’s footsteps and to pace the rooms of their apartment. Brow furrowed, hands wringing or twirling his scarf periodically, Kurt pays brief visits to the entryway mirror, on to the door of the oven, to the reading lamp by their recliner. He fumbles with the CD rack, pauses for a long while to look over the picture frames atop the mantelpiece, and circles the dining table almost four separate times.

 _It never gets any easier_ , Blaine thinks as he folds himself into the recliner in their living room, the one that Burt usually claims as his own in the times he comes out to see them. Cora is two paces away, tucked into the corner of the sofa, seemingly wrestling her favorite teddy bear, alternating between pinning him in a headlock and yawning in his face. She's resolutely skipped the lion cub stage and morphed into a full-fledged lioness not entirely unlike her other father, he thinks. He recognizes the look on her face and knows she’ll be asleep in minutes so he’ll be able to transfer her without a fuss from sofa to bed, doesn’t want to push her now when she’s just settling back home. She’s always a little grumpier after a journey and it’s easier to let her come to in her own way, in her own time.

They are two hours away, always just two hours away from Ohio, but it's a special kind of jet lag they get caught up in on the return, it feels like. Finally, his husband has posted himself at the window onto the fire escape, sitting with his back bowed and limbs all wound up as he hovers between worlds. Kurt's lower jaw is shifting, his eyes on a different frequency from the sights right in front of him.

"I'll unpack later," Kurt says absentmindedly. His fingers toddle along the base of the windowpane, taking steps like a newborn calf's.

Blaine's heart gives a lurch. "Don't worry about it," he replies, throat dry, and he knows he has a personality, has something other than pink and gray matter between his ears, but it isn't doing him any good in this moment.

His husband is marble inside and out, had long been a man whose strength is only amplified because he embraces his vulnerabilities, his fears and weaknesses. Kurt’s biggest and rawest hurts take root in the hurt of his loved ones – Blaine is there and can mourn Kurt’s lost years, made up of any second he’s gone mistreated or unappreciated, and Kurt never stops to join in on pitying himself or those who’ve missed out on knowing him. Kurt, his heart aches most when he thinks of Burt’s recent heart surgeries and the trials that have led to that point; of the two miscarriages in a row Santana told them about last time they’d been to dinner; of the pain in Mike’s words as he wrote of the sadistic bullying his eldest son had gone through, described in an email he’d read over Blaine’s shoulder.

If anyone deserves that amount of heartache (which Blaine, at least, is certain no one could) Kurt is not that person. Still, here he is and there his mother is, under six feet of earth in upstate Ohio; nothing could soften the blow of a mother’s life lost far too soon, nothing can or will bring Kurt back to life and bring his mother’s love and acceptance into clarity before the man is ready.

Blaine gazes across the chasm between them and can’t decide if touch, if physical reassurances are needed. He grounds himself with a palm to his own thigh, tries to transfer what he wants to say with his words and body without moving too soon, without pulling Kurt out of the dream before he’s ready to come up out of it. Maybe he should–

“It’s probably that I’ve actually gone back this year, that’s why,” Kurt says. Blaine’s just hearing the tail end of whatever concern had been hazing his eyes. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t even lean back into the recliner’s cushions.

“You know she passed in April; I guess it felt like no matter what I _did_ the week would bring me back to thinking about her. Which, that’s kind of the least I could do, right? She can’t see me, or meet you, or her grandchild... hell, she never really knew anyone I’m close to except my dad. She doesn’t get the chance to choose between doing _anything_ during her spring vacation, and her son is avoiding spending even two seconds thinking about her.”

“Kurt,” Blaine says, crawling over the ottoman to approach the window. He brings a hand to rest featherlight on his husband’s shoulder – Kurt immediately grasps that hand and brings it to be encased in warmth between his own, rested on his bent knees.

Still fumbling with his thick tongue, Blaine kneels on the hardwood in front of the window so his hand remains there between his husband’s: solid, right, guarded. The moon isn’t all that full but its light from on high gathers on their faces, glowing robin’s egg blue on facial features opposite each other. “What do you need from me?” he asks, knowing full well it’s comparable to asking a depressive what they need to get better.

Kurt huffs, and it’s the kind that’s fighting off a deeper sob. He brings his knuckles up to perch over his lips, hushing whatever’s bursting to come out. Blaine chews his lip, eyes flitting to register that all movement on the sofa seems to have ceased.

"I feel so selfish saying it, and it's not fair to talk about it with my dad – he lost his first love, I can't begin to imagine that, you know? I can't _fathom_ losing you, I don't want to and it kills me to even try and contemplate it." Blaine's always argued that death's inevitable; it's the least frightening aspect of life, with its complete certainty. Kurt's never gotten cozy with the concept, and it's not the sort of discussion even a logical mind will want to revive much. After all, death is not loss – he wasn't sure it applied, vice versa.

Kurt's eyelashes glisten in the creamy white light streaming in from above, and he sniffles quietly. "There's no way she wouldn't want to be here, I think, right? My mom was... She wasn't better at things than my dad, we just ended up understanding each other much sooner. And really, I should be endlessly grateful for that. That I got that at all.

"So I believe she'd like to see me now. I'd be alright if she'd been on a long, long vacation and hadn't seen me through high school and college, but if she came back right to this moment you don't know how happy that would make me. To see, if nothing else, what family has come to mean to me." Which is, all told, everything. "I mean, come to be for me, as well."

"This next part is hard to describe," Kurt says, sighing as if he's already frustrated with himself for not expressing it the right way.

"I'm right here, hon. I won't jump to any conclusions," Blaine murmurs.

"I talked to Quinn about this once, in high school, and I still remember it. It's, well, I don't believe there is a capital-g God, or other ones or many gods. But that means... sometimes my mind still wants to link cause and effect, to hold someone accountable for what happens in the world. When my dad was in the hospital before we met, you know that if anything I wanted to blame any higher powers for bringing my dad bad health, for bringing our family all these problems when my dad, at least, was one of the best, kindest men in the world in my eyes. I worried about his diet and exercise and wondered if I could've done things differently in the house."

"You weren't even the parent, Kurt."

"You worry, though, Blaine. You do and I've never known how to stop it."

"And Quinn?"

"You remember she stayed with Finn after her parents kicked her out, yeah? This was a lifetime ago, God. But I was immature then; close-minded, bitter, selfish, and jealous in equal amounts, honestly. Rationally, I knew Quinn didn't make herself pregnant. I knew even if she wanted a kid the last thing she would want was to end up carrying Noah's baby, to end up with parents who'd forsaken her, and to lose everything she valued most at McKinley. I also knew she didn't deserve everything she went through, physically, mentally... She was a bitch and she knows it, but no one could want that and without a doubt, I wouldn't wish an unwanted pregnancy on anyone. You're never the same afterwards."

"Puck, too."

"Or Santana and her terminated pregnancies."

"It's the same but certainly not better or worse." Blaine nods.

"I was stuck in my own mind then. I wasn't angry at Quinn and I didn't, like, begrudge her for any help she accepted. I never thought she owed anyone, or whatever. We offered and we'd do it again. I didn't... It obviously wasn't ideal, though, you know, and when there's no spirit above mapping out your destiny then my mind says, 'Well who's making this happen then?’ For me, in my head, I was on my high horse. Nobody wanted me, I didn't know what it felt like to be wanted physically and emotionally, and I'm not sure I got the wanting part either... I mean, my knees would go weak when Finn treated me like a friend, when he didn’t jerk away if I was passing him a pencil and our fingers happened to touch.

“My thoughts made everything linear, and so who else was to blame for the unfortunate circumstance of a teenage pregnancy but the teen herself? It was so simple to me; why couldn’t she just not have sex, not have that experience with a guy until much later? Sex wasn’t sexy, so I never understood why she couldn’t have waited, and why she let her worth be defined by her relationships. In the cosmic order of things, one way or another Quinn had wished that upon herself, or done something to make that happen, or I think at one point I secretly thought she had tried to make it happen; it was a dirty jealousy, knowing Finn might be obligated to be hers for good.”

“I can’t imagine what you talked to Quinn about,” Blaine says when it looks like Kurt isn’t making any moves to say more.

“I asked her if she ever got angry at God once, in our junior year. We were really close when she was close to anyone, talked more than once about stuff like this. But that time she said she made mistakes, why couldn’t he? She told me trying to understand him was just about as good as trying to understand anyone else, and that she didn’t want to lose her faith in the only man who still loved her back.”

In the calm, still air Blaine hears Cora coo a content sort of turn of phrase before she once again begins to snuffle in and out, breathing steadily while on her way back to dreamland. He thinks Kurt might leave it there for the night, but it seems they're all a little wired at the minute.

“After my mom died,” Kurt says, “I looked for reasons for why she was taken away so soon. I didn’t have a higher power I believed in, much less trusted with the big questions. Nobody should tell an eight year old or even an eighteen year old who’s lost his mom that everything happens for a reason, that she’s in a ‘better place.’ There is no _better place_ than the one that’s right there with me, so then did she disagree with that? Is that why it went that way?”

“You got angry.” Blaine speaks up.

Kurt’s eyes flash with an almost-excited agreement, like that’s exactly where he was headed. “I got so fucking furious, Blaine,” he whispers. “Believe me, I’m well aware of the ‘five stages of grief’ drivel. You’re supposed to move on, and I did, I hope I did–”

“You did.”

“But sometimes those other feelings come up. I was unbelievably sad, and seeing my dad struggle to be my Atlas really only made me sadder though I’d never tell him that. Clearly, I kind of got around to coming to terms with Mom’s death and adapting to live life without forgetting... but without dwelling until I couldn’t breathe either.

“And just now I got blindingly angry again for the first time in a _long_ while. I want her with me and I want to know that she’d want to see me and know me and know _you_ and love Cora and it’s just difficult, do you see? Because if anything what you think you should feel is loss and mourning and respect for the dead, but that’s so clinical; I don’t school my emotions into what they _should_ be with anyone, so it feels certifiably insane to think, ‘Oh, well I won’t feel this towards her anymore because she’s gone and I really shouldn’t do anything but love her unquestioningly.’ I feel guilty, I really do, but it also feels like she’d want me to work it out, not let it fester until I draw into question whether she loved being my mother, and then whether I love being Cora’s father.”

“And what conclusion do you come to about all this?”

“I know she loved me, and I still feel it in the ways I love Cora. I don’t...”

Blaine’s head is tilted to rest against the window ledge, his eyes clear and attentive as Kurt seeks his answer. He rubs his hand soothingly over Kurt’s knee and thigh, taking a moment to swallow over the insistent ache in his throat.

Kurt meets Blaine’s eye, making it startlingly apparent he’s come back to himself. “I can’t let myself get caught up looking for why things happen when the most that I’ll get done is driving myself crazy. But I can still get angry, even if it’s at my mom – she’d know it’s easier to get frustrated with the real-life human being who used to comb the knots out of my hair than it is to get angry at the concept of death. I love her and she loved me and we’ll never meet again, but somehow knowing she lived and I can be better for my family because of her, that’s better than waiting to see her again in some hereafter. She’s in this apartment every day, and not ‘in spirit’ but really: in the way I loved myself enough that I took a chance and found you, found love, even in the way I peel potatoes and fold the sheets.”

Blaine smiles softly. “I know the lullaby you sing to Cora is the same one she sang to you, your dad told me. And that crazy game you play with her after her bath is the same one your mom played when she dried you.” He inhales heavily, shifting on the hardwood to bring feeling back to his legs. “I lost you for a while there.”

“You’ve got me back,” Kurt assures him, running a sure hand through his curls. “I just end up in this corner of my heart that only I can work my way out of, you know? I get mad and I hurt but it’s alright, it’s human and healthy. I know how to put myself back together again and you’re here – it’s easier knowing you’ve got us both, that I can take a break from being "on’ and put all my energy into getting back to you two.”

“I feel like I’ve been surrounded by your mom’s touch even more than I realized.”

“Well, you have been. She was a natural.” Kurt smiles fondly, letting the exhaustion he’s shoved away finally weave its way between his bones and relax his muscles. “But so are we, Blaine.”

~ ~ ~

“Would you like," Kurt asks, “a brother? Or a sister?"

He's sat on the sofa with Blaine, thighs and shoulders pressed together as they watch their daughter play. It’s something they’ve been talking about for a while, the idea of expanding their family, something they know they want, know they’re ready for and while Cora for the most part is an absolute angel, she can also be a little precocious, doesn’t always deal that well with change. It makes sense therefore to plant the seed – so to speak – early; to give her time to get used to the idea so that by the time the baby arrives she’s too busy crawling out of her skin with excitement to be overly put out by the enormous shift in their family dynamic. That’s the plan anyway.

Cora looks up from where she is sprawled out on the floor on her tummy scribbling haphazardly in a coloring book, tongue poking through her teeth as she concentrates. Later she’ll tell them it’s a picture of a castle and they’ll have to pretend to be able to see it in what is really just brightly colored scrawls.

“Want a what?"

“She doesn't know what that is, babe," Blaine says gently with a squeeze to his husband’s knee. “A baby, Cora, would you like it if a baby came to live here with us?"

Cora wrinkles up her nose consideringly, head tilted to one side. She looks so much like Kurt that it makes Blaine's heart clench.

“No," she says finally, decidedly. “I want a kitten."

It's not the response either of them expected; Cora loves babies, makes the most adorable cooing noise when ever she is near one, a noise that only serves to reinforce her fathers’ beliefs that their daughter is actually a twenty-something in toddler packaging. This “no” was not what they had planned for.

“We shouldn't have given her a choice," Kurt hisses out of the side of his mouth and Blaine shrugs. What can he say? This is typical Cora: completely sure of her own opinions even though she’s not quite out of diapers; she’ll always zig when they expect her to zag. Her father’s daughter to a fault.

“No, darling," he tries, “not a kitten, a baby."

“No, darling," Cora parrots back, “a kitten."

Kurt snorts indelicately into his hand and Blaine throws him a glare. They have a deal. The deal is that when one of them is trying to discipline, or reason with, their daughter, the other does not laugh. Kurt seems to have let that fly out the window; Blaine will make him pay.

“Maybe when you're ten,” he says gently, “we can talk about a kitten.”

Cora grins at him all teeth and screwed-up face.

'”1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10,” she sing-songs, applauding herself at the end and fixing them with a Hummel bitch face ‘til they join in, clapping over-enthusiastically, matching indulgent smiles on both their faces. She's the cutest. “Kitten."

“Baby," Kurt says firmly. “You like babies. Don't you? And it would be lovely if we had one here with us all the time, wouldn't it."

“A baby?"

“A tiny little baby, like you used to be."

“I'm a big girl." Cora is very proud of that fact, has been since she was promoted from open-ended crib to “big girl” bed, and holds up a palm to be high-fived.

“Yes, you are! And big girls get to have a baby brother or sister. Won't that be fun?"

“I like babies."

Kurt and Blaine share a smile. Mission accomplished.

“Can we get it now?"

Or, not.

“Well no," Blaine says slowly, “not now."

“Tomorrow?"

“No... not tomorrow."

Cora's bottom lip quivers, her eyes fill with tears – Kurt curses under his breath. This is not going at all according to plan.

~

“Do we want to move out?” Blaine blurts out once after they've returned from a walk around the park on the corner.

Kurt hesitates while hanging up all three of their scarves behind the door. “I mean – no, but I don’t see a whole lot of ways around it.”

“So you’re saying we need more space?”

“Just– Don’t put words in my mouth, not where the apartment can hear.”

“We kind of do... I’ll just take the bullet and say it.” He hikes a sleepy Cora out of her stroller and up to his hip. Her eyes glint with joy from the ride, and she begins to systematically pull at every curl she can find sticking out from Blaine's knit cap, counting as she tugs, a ‘one curl, two curl, free curl’ that has Blaine making a mental note to buy her an abacus for the sake of his follicles alone.

“Honey, I can’t just _hand over_ the space where Cora entered our lives. She said her first word in that bathtub! She got her first band-aid – which was entirely your fault – from smacking into that door.”

“Naughty door,” Cora says crossly, as though she remembers the incident in question. Blaine does all too well, clearly, and he snorts quietly.

“You kept asking if my ancestors had inbred, if you should be worried about hemophilia – which almost exclusively affects males, by the way – or about anything else that would increase her chance of bleeding out.” He’s not hiding his desire to laugh very well.

“It was a valid concern. The bleeding out, at least.”

“Definitely was not. Now that’s settled for the thirtieth time, I’m coming out and saying this place would end up cramped in a couple years even if we weren’t planning on expanding.” With a gentle hand, he separates his daughter's iron grip and passes her off to Kurt, who automatically begins to bounce her on his hip, turning his torso in soothing half-circles.

“ _Expanding_ , Blaine,” Kurt says in awe, turning back to widen his eyes at his grinning husband.

“Cora’s growing quickly thanks to _your genes_ ,” – Blaine tips his head – “and bouncing around every square foot she’s given thanks to my influence.”

“You’re being far too fair and reasonable. I think the apartment deserves an advocate.”

“Kurt." He's knelt down to leave his boots by the door and his tone goes stern. "Remember when Cooper and his ego came to stay over President’s Day weekend?”

“Oh God, that was horrible. Why would you remind me of that? Horrible horrible.” The father-daughter dance continues on the other side of the living room, the light from the windows playing over their faces when they pass before one.

“Yes. Horrible. There are things like guest baths for a _reason_ , Kurt. We can afford maybe one and a half, two more rooms. Haven’t we earned at least that much?”

“...I didn’t like that at all. When they say, ‘Don’t meet your heroes,’ what they should be saying is, ‘Don’t for any reason share a bathroom with your heroes, especially not if they’re devastatingly handsome, because no appeal (sex appeal or otherwise) will remain once they’ve cut their toenails over your toilet and apparently borrowed every shaver they could find.’”

“We need a bigger place.”

“We need a bigger place,” Cora agrees, desperate as always to be part of the conversation, and Blaine laughs.

“For Cora and your sperm’s unnamed-at-present darling embryo,” Kurt prompts.

“And for us, babe.” Blaine has stepped over and he wraps an arm around Kurt’s waist. They’re still dancing, but slower now.

“Oh. For us?” Kurt sounds as though the thought hadn’t crossed his mind.

“For us, as in the happy couple who will promptly rip out each other’s throats if confined in this apartment with two infants.”

“Oh, honey. I would never. Your eyeballs, maybe.”

Blaine snorts, nuzzling with a tired sigh, nose to Kurt’s cheek. “Always a step ahead,” he says fondly.

“I never even tore out Rachel’s throat, and she’s tested my patience daily since sophomore year. Of course, I think even then her voice was insured for more than our net worth.”

“You just wanted to keep her as your duet partner waiting in the wings if need be.”

“I’ve since found more compatible partnership elsewhere, thank you very much, and still I resist. That’s what I call patience. I should be sainted.” He lifts Cora at her shoulders and brings her nose in to bop his own. “Shouldn’t I, baby girl? Leaving Auntie Rachel be was truly a miracle, don’t you think, love?” He brings her face, complete with that scrunchy look identical to his own, close again and showers her with countless butterfly kisses as she squeals a delighted “Daddy” and tries to wriggle free.

“...So we’ll start looking next week, then?”

“It’s just... the _memories,_ Blaine.” Kurt sighs despairingly.

“We’re not saying good _bye_ , babe, not losing them. Just setting the stage for the next years to be even better, y’know? Making more room.”

“...I guess I should be glad you’ve got my best interests in mind and you’re fighting on my side. This apartment’s lawyer doesn’t stand a chance.”

“I think it kind of wants a split from us, too, frankly. I’ve heard whispers the floorboards are fed up of getting apple juice spilled on them once a week.”

Kurt’s smile turns conspiratorial. “Oh yeah?”

“And the bathroom mirror says the nastiest things about the guy who squeegees it clean every single day without fail. You shouldn’t listen. I find it hurtful and it’s not even aimed at me.”

“Well, you definitely don’t want to hear what the wall behind our headboard’s been saying about you, then.”

“That headboard’s a voyeur.” Blaine winks. “I think it likes it.”

Kurt huffs out a laugh, but there’s a look in his eyes that Blaine has come to know. Blaine reaches out for Cora, presses a kiss to the top of her head before planting her on the floor. He watches as she gallops in the direction of her toy box before turning his attention back to his husband. Kurt is gazing wistfully out of the window and Blaine reaches out to turn him by the elbow so they stand face to face.

Blaine gets it, or at least he thinks he does: Kurt has a problem with letting things go, with leaving things behind. His fear of memories fading until they are little but a haze he can barely bring into focus is deep-rooted and rears its head with each milestone Cora reaches; each new moment they share; each time he wants to reach for a mom that isn’t there. Blaine’s never known loss like Kurt has – a fact for which he is eternally grateful – and all he can do is try every day to reassure. Kurt’s mom lives on in Burt, in Kurt, in Cora, just like the memories they’re making together don’t exist only in these four walls. They’ll take them with them wherever they go and they’ll make new ones to add to them. One day when they’re old and they’re gray they’ll look back and all these memories will still be there, be precious and real. Just, how to make that make sense to Kurt?

“You’re thinking awfully loudly,” Kurt says softly, stepping forward and sliding his arms around Blaine’s waist. “What’s going on in there?” There’s a soft press of lips to Blaine’s temple and he smiles.

“Thinking about you,” he says, “and Cora, and us. About your mom. About past and present and future. How I want you to always be tied up in all of mine.”

“And you mine.”

“And so... it doesn’tmatter _where_ we are, as long as we _are._ You know?”

Kurt glances over to where Cora has pulled what looks to be every toy she owns out of the box and sits smack bang in the middle of them all with a satisfied grin on her face, then back at Blaine, his Blaine, no less breathtaking for all his familiarity, brow a little furrowed in concern but mouth curved in a soft smile.

“Yes,” he replies. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so very much for reading. There's a big fat virtual hug (and maybe smooch) in it for those who comment and let us know how you found it. Either way, we love you very much. Happy Big Bang!
> 
> And again, so many thanks to maxwell-kiddo. Please check out the Master Art Post [HERE](http://cs-kiddo.livejournal.com/5082.html).


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